Before Harry met Lucy
by Harold Saxon
Summary: The Doctor and the Master travel back to the Christmas of 2004 before Harold Saxon had ever met Lucy. A sinister creature  escapes from a 18th century painting and threatens the life of his future wife. COMPLETED
1. Chapter 1

**Before Harry met Lucy**

**Spoilers**: post The End of Time, non-canon

**Part**** of ****Series:** Shattered Worlds is part of a series called "A Timelord and his Madman", but can be read as a stand-alone. The series include: (1) His Silent Mind, starting from the events of the End of Time, but with an alternative twist that the 10th Doctor was not forced to regenerate. (2) Judoon Justice. (3) A Murderous Feast. (4) Shattered Worlds. The links to these stories can be found on my author's page, or go to my author's page to find the link to my website for more information.

_Versenaberrie was so kind to make some beautiful trailers for this story. You really should check them out. A link can be found on my author's page._

**Chapter 1**

**1.**

The wipers scratched in unison over the windowscreen while outside, rain trickled down in the dark streets of London. The night's cold was still in the air, and the cabby driver blew into his hands to warm them before putting them back on the wheel. When the traffic light turned green, he drove the cab around the corner into Coventry Street, while on the radio, a sleepy broadcaster tried to inject some much-needed cheerfulness into this gloomy December day.

"Good morning Londoners. It's 4 AM and you're listening to BBC 2 radio. We've got tons of music waiting for you to get you out of your warm comfy bed and into the dreary traffic, but for those early birds who are already up and running, here's another song to bring you into the festive spirit, a golden oldie, Joni Mitchell and "River".

"Joni Mitchell, real classy that is." He muttered, and stared out of the front window. The city center of London had not yet awakened. Its famous streets, which belonged to the bankers, city workers and tourists during the day, were still the domain of the garbage men, lorry drivers, and unholy figures, who preferred to do their business in the dark because it would not bear the light of day. Drazek, the cabbie, could easily be appointed to the last two categories, and he was looking for a client.

It wasn't easy to make a living here on Earth. Not when you're an alien immigrant, who had been forced to leave his poor home planet that was ravaged by ecological disasters with wife and kids. For one thing, the Freedonian body shape had very little resemblance to that of the dominant life form on Earth; the biped, long limbed, slender build mammals that called themselves the human species. The body suites that his wife had made to allow her family to blend in weren't very comfortable. He would love to stretch his 8 tentacles now and then, but he knew from experience that people didn't like to be driven around by an eight-legged, 5 feet tall squid-like Arthropod, and he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself, not now the kids were doing so well at school.

The point was that they weren't exactly legal. The authorities, not the earth authorities of course, but the ones that governed outer space, and those were the worst, knew who he was, and he and his family were tolerated. However, this toleration had a price. It was one of the reasons why he was up before dawn, driving around the abandoned streets around Piccadilly. That was why there were two bottles with dubious content wrapped in a plastic bag next to him on the passenger's seat.

Drazek was content with his day job. It was steady and safe, and when he was initially asked, he wasn't too keen to start messing around again with the old ways. Freedonian mysticism was notorious for its dangerous potions and semi-magical rituals that were bound to set your house on fire or turn your wife into a chicken, _by__accident_. However, when _THEY_ called in the middle of the night and asked you for a favor, you couldn't say no. Not in the difficult position he was in.

Actually, he better showed up on time with the merchandise.

He passed by the National Gallery, and noticed the big billboard signs advertising the up and coming exposition on romantic art. Visit the private collection of Lord Maximillianus Cole, it read, more than 150 artworks based on the famous works of William Shakespeare. A special Christmas event, sponsored by the Infinity Corporation UK.

"Classy. Must remember that one." Drazek mumbled. The tourists would love to tip a little extra to see to that sort of thing. It was what they came to England for. A bit of art and a bit of theater. Honestly, you wouldn't come here for the bloody food.

At the big square, he turned the cab around again and finally saw a lonely figure standing in front of the Anteros fountain. She was dressed in a white raincoat, and held a blood-red umbrella up against the steady drizzle of rain. Drazek parked his cab close-by, and stepped out, taking the plastic bag with the bottles with him.

"So." He said, eyeing her from top to heels. He didn't expect that they would send a proper human to do the business. If it wasn't for the red umbrella that they had agreed on to use as a secret mark, he would have still been looking for a bulky 3 feet tall Judoon officer who had been fitted into an uneasy undercover shimmer.

"So, they're sending a little lady this time. That's real classy." He took out his package of cigarettes. "Mind if I smoke? I've got a 12-hour shift coming up. Need my nicotine fix to stay awake."

"Did you bring it?" She asked, cutting right to the chase and sounding not very friendly. Drazek wasn't impressed. He had been around bossier women. Now and then he did have to go home and face Mrs. Drazek. He took a long drag from his cigarette and showed her the plastic bag.

"Two potions. As ordered." He said, blowing out a chimney worth of smoke.

"Right, hand them over to me."

"They told me that I would get paid for this."

She rolled her eyes. If she wasn't so bloody rude, she could have been pretty, he thought. Going through her handbag, she fished out a wad of banknotes and waved it at him.

"The potions." She demanded.

He handed her the bag. She took it and immediately started to inspect the content.

"Which one is which?"

"The Red one is to wake him up. Or it up. I'm not sure how to categorize something like that. The only thing that I know for sure, is that once it's awake, you better get the bloody hell out of the way." He grinned. Oh there was no doubt in his mind that their plan was absolutely moronic.

"It's not your business." She remarked, as if she was reading his thoughts. "What about the green potion?"

"Makes him forget." He replied, blowing smoke through his nostrils. "I must warn you. Don't try anything out on yourself. The dose is just enough to wipe out the short-term memory of a Timelord, but what's in that little bottle is more than enough to turn a whole busload of humans prematurely dement. It's 70% concentrated extract of the black Judas tree, not some cough syrup from the pharmacist. So be careful."

"So it's strong. I got that." She answered with irritation in her voice. "For the record, I have no intention on trying it out on myself."

"Are you sure?" He gave her a sly smile. "Maybe just a drop? After the foul deed is done? Not that I judge you or any of my sponsors. It's just like what they say. Fair is foul and foul is fair, to quote the old poet." He grinned.

She stared back at him with a look that could turn a man into stone. "How do I use the potions?"

Drazek leaned back against the side of his cab and sucked in the air through the stump of his cigarette till the tip glowed brightly orange.

"Air." His voice dropped to a low whisper. "Let it inhale the red potion. The green one, he has to drink. You can decide in which order, but I would guess red first, then the green." He threw the cigarette bud on the ground and stamped it out. "Now, can I get paid?"

She tossed him the wad of banknotes, which he caught and pocketed away immediately. He could count them later. One thing good could be said about these bloody space pigs, they were at least reliable. His contact had already turned around and was walking away from him when he shouted after her, for no other reason than that he was still a cabby driver and curiosity was part of the job description.

"Is it true what they say about him?" He asked. "About the Doctor?"

For moment, it seemed like she was not going to respond, but then she slowed down, hesitated for a moment, and finally, turned back.

"What do your_illegal_ alien friends say about him?" She asked, giving him a warning.

The cab driver put his hands inside his pocket and grinned.

"That he is a changed man. They say that this planet is up for grabs because he no longer cares. Because he's too busy running with the _devil_."

"That's a lie!" The fierceness of her response only broadened Drazek's grin.

"Thought so." He admitted, although it was obvious that he didn't believe her at all. If everything was as it should be, they wouldn't have to contact him, and she wouldn't need the potions. "Well." He headed back to his car. "It's been nice doing business with you. I'll be off. The best of luck. Oh and if the Shadow Proclamation needs anything else in the future…"

But River Song was no longer listening. She held the bag with the bottles tightly in a white knuckled grip, and crossed the streets in determined strides. That Freedonian muck head was wrong about the Doctor. He would never abandon this planet and its people. He loved them too much. But it didn't mean that someone as noble, brilliant and kindhearted as the Doctor could not be corrupted. It didn't mean that he wasn't in great, _great_ danger. Reaching the other side of the road, she rummaged through her handbag and took out her transporter to get her back to the ship.

It was about time that someone removed the devil from the good Doctor's side.

**2.**

He was running with the Doctor.

It was _thrilling_, with all of his survival instincts screaming for more. Each step an exciting exercise. Never boring. Well, there had been moments of course, for example when the Doctor was wasting his life on his worthless hobby of cataloging black holes, and other moments when he was just bored out of mind when his fellow Timelord was spewing gibberish with no end and he had to stop listening to protect himself from severe and irreversible brain-damage, but not now.

Absolutely not now.

An arrow shot by, passing over his head only with the length of eyelash, followed by a curse in 16th century French uttered closely behind. A quick look at each other and both Timelords speeded up, knowing that a rather painful death was chasing them on the heels.

"These people are taking this way too serious." The Master breathed. He was grinning, and much to the Doctor's irritation, enjoying himself immensely.

"This is France! Of course they take it serious! Are you ever going to give it back to them! They are about to turn us into pincushions." The Doctor eyed accusingly at him and the small vat he was carrying. "I don't care that 1578 was a most excellent vintage year. No matter how good this stuff is, it's not worth of getting your backside stuffed with arrows for."

"Not in a million light-years." Came the reply from the Master as he tapped on the wooden vat. " I won it fair and square."

"You didn't pay for it. They aren't calling us stealing English dogs for nothing you know."

"Well how would I know that you're dirt poor and didn't have anymore money on you?" The Master responded annoyingly. A threatening shadow flew over their heads. "Dive!" He warned.

They bowed just in time before another flight of arrows hit the cobbles in front of their feet. They leaped over them at the very last moment. Straightly ahead, the street split into two.

"This way!" Both said authoritatively, and each of them turned the opposite corner, leaving their followers in confusion to decide which Timelord to chase. Finally the mob split up, with the more menacing men heading after the one who had stolen their vat of priceless Premier Cru wine with raised pitchforks and loaded crossbows.

The Master shot a glance back, making sure that they were still following him, before he vanished into a shadowy side street. He ran down the public staircase till he reached the stables next to the town's only auberge. The two Timelords had been staying in the 16th century Saint Emilion for only two days and already, he was starting to get bored. It was about time that they left this one-horse joke of a town, but getting back to the Tardis might be a problem if the locals keep screaming for your blood.

_Time__for__plan__B_, the Master thought. He turned another corner, his feet half slipping over the white limestone cobbles. He really needed a better pair of shoes. The old trainers the Doctor had given him were starting to get worn down, and honestly, they looked like a pair of hobo shoes.

He ran into the stables, knowing exactly what he was doing, and found what he was looking for kept in the horse pen at the back.

"Greetings my four-legged noble friend." He said with a big toothy grin. "Remember me?"

The humongous black stallion inside the pen turned his head sideways and looked down at Master. Recognizing him, he snorted, and widened his nostrils while he lifted his upper lip. If a horse could hiss angrily like a cat, this was probably how it would look like.

"So you do remember me. No hard feelings I hope?"

You have to know that there had been this little "accident" on the very first night they arrived in this sleepy French town. The Doctor and the Master had supper in the auberge, when some of the locals started telling them tall tales about this horse named Black Satan, who was so wild and mad that no-one in the whole region of Bordeaux could possible ride it. The Master, encouraged by the constant flow of reasonable consumable wine, had in perfect 16th century French informed them that he was a skilled horseman, and bragged that no horse, however wild, could throw him off. An enthusiastic bet followed under much protest of the Doctor, which was completely ignored by the Master because he was too confident and too drunk to listen to his companion's nagging. After the bets were fixed, they had all ventured outside to see how the stranger was going to make a total fool of himself. One look at the monster horse that the locals bought to him, and the Master was fiercely regretting his words. He still managed to climb on Black Satan's back while the rearing animal was held down by a tangle of ropes and four bulky farmers. It was then that the Master finally realized that he was sure to crack his head open on the pavement once the mad creature was released. In a fit of slight panic, he decided to hypnotize the horse and make the bloody thing stand still for a minute or two, so he could cash in his bet and get the hell off. He hadn't hypnotized anything for some time now, and he was a bit rusty in practice. He had also never tried it on a horse before. The result was quite disastrous. The fiery steed turned to a board of wood instantly, tipping to his side with his four legs stiff in the air. The Master just managed to jump off in time before being flattened. Needless to say, the incidence didn't go down well with the locals. It didn't go down well with the monster horse either, who responded to the Master's sudden presence in his stable by slamming his head against the pen like a maddened bull.

"Ah, how sweet." The Master cooed. "You're just too pleased to see me again. And they say horses don't make affectionate pets."

Angry voices came form outside the stable. One of the French farmers looked inside, spotted him, and alarmed the rest of the mob. The Master waited till the raging steed backed away a little before he unlocked the pen and threw the wooden barrier wide open. Somewhere inside Black Satin's mad horse brains, the sight of a straight open road without serious obstacles (he was sure that those soft human farmers could easily be trampled) automatically activated the springs in his legs. He reared up, whining threateningly, which gave the Master enough time to move out of the creature's way to the back while the horse scared the wit out of the angry Frenchmen. The Master grinned. With one slap on the horse's backside, he released the steed from hell, setting him onto the townsmen. The mob dispatched like a flock of headless chickens, running for dear life, as Satan headed for the exit in one mad bolt for freedom.

The rest of the journey back to the Tardis was surprisingly uneventful. When the Master strolled down leisurely through the northern town's gate and saw the Doctor standing next to the Tardis with his arms crossed, waiting worriedly for him with a strict expression on his face, he simply returned a broad grin and held up the vat of wine in triumph.

"Told you I was going to keep this." Coming closer, he noticed the horrible state the Doctor was in. "Why on Gallifrey are you completely covered in this dreadful slime?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I had to jump in the nearby river to get rid of them." The Doctor explained, rather sourly. The Master sniffed and wrinkled up his sensitive nose.

"I know I know. Don't tell me. I smell like dog wee." The Doctor sighed. "It's like an open drain down there. But…hang on, where is your angry mob?"

"I honestly don't know." The Master relied innocently. "Perhaps eaten by a horse?" As he lowered the vat, an arrow shot out of nowhere and pierced right through the lid. The Master shot an angry look over his shoulder. "Hey! You IDOT! Careful with that! That's priceless first label wine you're messing with!"

They answered him with a second onslaught of arrows and stones, propelled mainly at his head. The Doctor rushed inside, quickly followed by the Master, with the locals in hot pursuit. Just when they thought that they were safe and the Master was about to shut the door behind him, a hail of stones coming from a slingshot was projected through the opening and smashed into the back of the vat, puncturing a web of holes.

The Master looked absolutely appalled as the wine poured out the many holes and spilled all over the floor.

Hands started to stick out from the side of the door as the angry mob was trying to force its way in.

"What? What are you doing?" The Doctor shouted and ran right back to ram his shoulder against the wooden panel. "Lock the bloody door! They're getting in!"

"I'm busy!" The Master shouted back, and pressed his hands on the punctures, trying desperately to stop the spill.

"Right." The Doctor wheeled around and with the last of his strength, managed to give a good shove. The angry farmers, worried about loosing their fingers, pulled back their hands and the Doctor finally succeeded to shut the door entirely. Quickly, he turned the lock.

Finally. Safe at last.

He sank through his knees, exhausted and panting like an overheated dog.

"Curses!" The Master hissed in frustration. It was no use. The liquid kept seeping through his fingers and draining out the completely sieved canister. "Get a bowl! A bottle! A teapot, anything! There's almost nothing left!"

The Doctor just glared at him. He then slowly got up, took the vat from the other Timelord's hands, dropped it, and kicked it as far away from him as possible.

"That…was completely unnecessary." The Master replied in a strangely calm and polite voice.

Something snapped inside the Doctor and suddenly, the blank expression on his face made way for something so sinister that it actually frightened the Master a little.

"OH believe me...THAT!" The Doctor pointed out, standing on the tip of his toes as he loomed over the Master. "WAS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!"

"Well. You don't need to shout like that. Good grieve Doctor, it's just a barrel of wine." The Master replied, staring back at him with a puzzled look on his face. He weaseled himself out of his cornered position and headed for the helical staircase.

"Would you terribly mind if I select some new clothes from your wardrobe?" He asked as if the Doctor wasn't completely boiling over in anger. "I think I spilled something on my coat." He gave him the sweetest of smiles before he vanished into the upstairs chambers, leaving the Doctor to press his lips together and smash his head against the railing to get rid of his frustrations.

**3.**

Three hours later, and the Doctor's wardrobe looked like it had been hit by a mini tornado. The Master stood in front of the mirror admiring his reflection. He was surrounded by piles of crumbled-up clothes that had been taken out of the closet and thrown carelessly over the floor. Although far from perfect, he was reasonable content with the current ensemble that he had chosen. The old outfit really had to go. The Doctor had picked it out for him in the early days of his recovery, and was composed of the sort of sensible clothing that your mum would have chosen for you to make you the laughing stock of the playground. A wind-tight jacket, sturdy jeans, wooly hat and mittens, that sort of thing. He even gave him his best pair of running sneakers, in case he got into trouble and needed to bolt (which had happened quite often). It was of course, all done with the best of intentions, but unfortunately, it came from a man who once thought that a stick of celery was a brilliant fashion accessory. Honestly, none of the Doctor's regenerations ever had any sophisticated taste, hence the current eccentric hobo-look that the Doctor now carried with a misplaced sense of pride. The awful long coat and white trainers combination was enough to make the Master wince. If he wanted to run around looking like the village idiot with all the sophistication of a boiled potato, that was fine, as long as he didn't expect the same from him. The Master preferred a touch more class.

"Are you still admiring yourself in that mirror?" Came the question from the Doctor who was standing next to the staircase, below in the console room. "How long is this going to take? And didn't the mirror crack yet?" He added in annoyance.

"Patience is a most valuable virtue, Doctor." The Master mumbled, and flashed a charming smile and a wink at himself before he reappeared at the top of the staircase in his showy new outfit. "I feel like a man reborn." He said as he headed down the stairs while readjusting his silver cufflinks.

The Doctor stared at him with raised eyebrows. In his black suit with subtle dark-blue stripes, his flashy deep purple tie, crisp white shirt, and long black coat, he looked like a 21st century dandy on the prowl.

The Doctor crossed his arms. "Where are the sneakers I've given you?" Eying down at the shoes the Master was currently wearing. They were Italian leather, expensive, and polished so obsessively that they actually glowed. "You can't run on those. What if you get into trouble, again?"

"Well, I still have you, don't I?" He cracked a smile and winked at him. "So where are we going? 16th century Saint Emilion didn't exactly work out. Your Tardis must be getting demented."

"Oh don't start. You set out the course to track down the Alfa-Omega symbol in time and space, and that's just exactly what she did. She couldn't know that the same emblem was used by the order of 16th century Saint Emilion winemakers."

"At least I had a somewhat enjoyable time. What about you Doctor?" He smiled charmingly at him. "Who would have thought that the locals take the auction at the yearly wine-harvest festival in such high regard. It was a shame that I didn't get to keep my souvenir though. It would have been marvelous with some good ripe cheese and a lick of fig confit." He said, while doing a disturbing imitation of a well-known cannibalistic psychopath by sucking in air between his teeth.

The Doctor just sighed. Yet another day traveling with the Master. Yet another _near-death__and__being__chased__out__of__the__village__by__an__angry__mob_ experience. In the end, you got used to it. And of course his companion wasn't the least concerned about anything. Why should he? He got the Doctor, who was crazy enough to take care of him and clean the up mess behind his backside like some nanny looking after an overactive toddler. He just dreaded to think how the changing room might now look like after the Master was finished with it. Sometimes he really did feel like he was tilting at windmills.

A pair of hands clapped shut in front of his face. "Hey." The Master said, looking him in the eyes. "Stop daydreaming Gladys. We're still caught in an exciting pursuit of that sinister Infinity Corporation that kidnapped Rachel, remember? So let's show some initiative here."

The Doctor blinked his eyes tiredly. If only the Master could control himself. If only he wasn't a borderline autistic sociopath who had the wits of a genius but the maturity of a six year old, the Doctor's life could be so much better.

"We're going where the Tardis leads us next." The Doctor replied instead. "Only this time, we make sure that the symbol is linked the Infinity Corporation. That should rule out any funny wine-business." He pulled the lever down and sent the Tardis spinning into the vortex.

**4.**

They landed in Oxford Street, right next to a phone booth. It was around six in the early evening, almost Christmas time, judging by the decoration in the windows of the high street shops. It was all artificial snow, Red-nosed Rudolfs, glitter Santas and Christmas trees. The air was frosty, and the Doctor pulled up his collar as he admired the cheerful lights that hung across the entire street.

"Oh this is absolutely wonderful!" He cheered with boyish joy. "I love this time of year. It's a good time to come back to London in the 21st century. I love Victorian Christmases, but you do miss the lights and the shops and oh! Those silly little Santa dolls that jiggle and dance when you whistle."

They just passed by a whole lot of them, sold in a stand in front of a department store. The Doctor grinned, eyes wide in anticipation, and wet his lips, but before he could produce a whistle, the Master pinched his lips shut between two gloved fingers. "Oh no. Let's not do that." He remarked dryly, and pulled him away.

"What's wrong with dancing Santas?" The Doctor asked after he was released and had covered a safe distance.

"Everything." The Master replied. "They are the stuff of nightmares." He stuck his hands deep inside his pockets. These fancy leather gloves aren't actually well isolated. He hated to admit it, but he actually missed his wooly mittens. "The idea that some fat git wanders around on your roof in the middle of the night and is trying to break into your property is just ridiculous. You are even supposed to encourage this kind of behavior with an offering of milk and cookies. If I tried anything like that I would be shot."

"Well there is a slight difference between you and grandfather Christmas of course." The Doctor said with a cheeky smile.

"I was trying to make a point. These Earthlings are teaching their kids to believe in benevolent fairytale creatures, deluding and coloring their world with sweet candy colored lenses, while instead, they should have warned them about the real dangers in life, educate them how cruel this world can be and teach them not to be so incredible stupid."

"Blimey, what a delightful father _you_ would make." The Doctor muttered as they made their way through the crowd to Piccadilly Circus.

"It's just common sense, Doctor. Think of Rachel, her parents didn't tell her much about the Nazis. They tried to shield their daughter from the evil of men, perhaps they did it out of love, but in the end, if it weren't for us, she wouldn't have made it. If this world is as bad as you and I know it is, you better prepare your children how to face that evil, instead of wasting their time and teaching them decency, morals and respect, while they're better off if they knew how to be devious, vicious and relentless."

They crossed the busy road, running over to the other side in front of a loaded double-decker bus. "Anyway, where are we going?" The Master asked after he was finally finished with his bitter monologue.

"The National Gallery." The Doctor answered, and picked up a free newspaper from a freezing teenager who was distributing them near the metro station exit. "It's all over the front page." He showed it to the Master as they leaped up the stairs.

"The date is December the 14th 2004. Good year." The Doctor muttered, shortly remembering what he'd been up to at the time. "New exposition showing the neo-romantic works of 18th century art inspired by the writings of the great Poet. A must see event sponsored by the Infinity Corporation UK." He read aloud. "This festive season, take your kids and come and visit the magical fairy tale worlds of the greatest stories ever told." The Doctor grinned, folded the paper and handed it over to the Master.

"Oh look at that, fairy tales and kids. Must be right up your alley then." He said sharply, and went inside through the glass door entrance. The Master, who gruntingly put the folded paper inside the pocket of his long black coat, followed him.

"We're here for the special exposition." The Doctor told the woman behind the ticket counter.

"I'm sorry sir, but the exposition is not open for public yet." She said, smiling apolitically at him. "It starts the 15th of December, which is tomorrow. If you like, I could pre-order two tickets for you."

"There are people going inside the exposition hall." The Master remarked, noticing the long line of well-dressed men and women in the lobby waiting to show their ID pass to a museum attendant before they disappearing inside a secluded area. The signs above the entrance clearly stated that it was for the special Shakespeare collection. "Why are they allowed in?" He asked the ticket lady. He observed her for a short moment, and then gave a little sight before he grabbed the Doctor's wallet out of his long coat.

"Hey! That's mine!" The Doctor objected.

"How much extra do we have to pay you to get in?" The Master asked, counting out the banknotes on the counter.

"Nothing sir." She responded, rather shocked by the offering. "We don't do things like that. It's against museum policy."

"Give that back!" The Doctor snatched the wallet from him, and folded the notes away. "Stop threatening her with money. We're in London, England, 21st century, which means that there are rules and regulations, and bribery is out of the question."

"Don't be absurd, of course it isn't. How do you think those fat cats get in?"

"Well, they received an invitation for the opening party of course." The lady behind the counter explained. "Most of them are art lovers, or are friends of Lord Cole who owns the private collection. Some of them might have donated money to the Gallery, but I can assure you sir, we didn't take any brides." She added seriously.

"Told you." The Doctor said, and exchanged his wallet for the slightly psychic paper. "I am so sorry. I forgot to mention this, but we do have an invitation. We're from the sponsors, Infinity corporation UK? I'm doctor John Smith and this is my friend –"

"Colleague." The Master mumbled.

"I mean colleague." The Doctor corrected, and raised his brows.

"The name is Harold Saxon." The Master added with a charming smile.

"Oh, why didn't you say so immediately?" The worries cleared up from the ticket lady's face after she checked out the invitation letter held in front of her nose. "Let me print out the ID cards for you. Here you go, show that to security and they will let you in."

"Yes, brilliant." The Doctor mumbled, only loud enough for the Master to hear. "Introduce yourself as the would-be psychopathic prime minister of England. You must be dying to get into trouble."

"There is nothing wrong with a bit of danger. It makes life more thrilling and traveling with you less dull, Doctor." The Master smirked as he took the ID passes from the counter. "Besides, I like Harold Saxon. It's a good name."

"It has the sound of a popular grease politician all over it." The Doctor muttered.

The Master smiled as if he was actually flattered by the snide remark. "Exactly." He told him.

**5.**

Inside the exposition hall, the party was already in full swing. Elegantly dressed women and men in gray suits and dinner jackets mingled with the more eccentrically dressed art experts and Shakespeare scholars. Groups of people were standing around the paintings, involved in heavy discussions on the use of color and light by the scrutinized artist. It surprised the Master how much verbal drivel people could produce about this sort of thing. He grabbed a drink from a passing waiter's tray and looked around, searching for someone interesting to talk to. Preferably a woman and mind-boggling gorgeous. His eyes settled on a brunette in a stunning green cocktail dress that hugged her curves like a second skin. The Doctor meanwhile, had been talking nonsense to him ever since they got in, and was currently very busy lecturing on the pros and cons of serving hors d'oeuvres on little cocktail picks. Thank Gallifrey, now that he had traveled with the Doctor for while, he had learned when to stop listening to him to protect his brains from turning into mush.

"Let's mingle, shall we?" He told his Timelord companion, and got rid of the empty glass on a passing tray before he headed off.

"Yes, you do that." The Doctor said, as he watched how the Master charmed his way into a conversation with a dashing brunette. "Never mind me." He muttered, and noticed not without irritation, how the Master already put his hand on the small of the woman's back as he coaxed her away from the artworks and towards the closest bar.

He frowned and looked down at the little pork sausage that was skewered on a green plastic pick. "Why do people keep doing that?" He muttered to himself, not realizing that he actually sounded sour. Really, don't they realize how much extra waste this would produce? Not to mention the potential choking hazard. It may sound ridiculous, but people do become careless after a couple of drinks, especially at a party.

"Excuse me sir, but is there something wrong with the sausages?"

The Doctor gazed up. A tall, middle-aged man in his late fifties stood in front of him. His face was long and lean, and he had combed his thinning hair to the side. He was dressed like upper class gentry, and from the haughty look on his face and the way he held up his thin nose in the air, he probably was.

"No of course not." The Doctor answered. "Well there is this matter of these wasteful cocktail picks, but I rather not bore you with that." They shook hands. "The name is doctor John Smith." The Doctor introduced himself.

"Lord Maximillianus Cole."

"Lord Cole." The Doctor repeated, as the name immediately rang a bell. "Lord Maximillianus Cole, oh but it's you isn't it? In the papers and on the billboards outside. This is your private collection."

"Call me Max, no-one ever calls me Maximillianus. It's a rather long name and people tend to spell it wrong in the most hysterical ways. I don't believe we've ever met before?"

"Oh, no, Lord Cole. I mean Max. I'm from the sponsors. The Infinity Corporation?" He flashed his psychic paper at him. "The company had tickets left. My colleague and I are art lovers so they let us come."

"That's just a plain sheet of paper." Lord Cole noted.

"Pardon?" The Doctor said. There were only a couple of people in the whole history of the human race who couldn't be fooled by the psychic paper trick, and running into one of the scarce few still left the Doctor bit gob-smacked every time, but he quickly composed himself and examined his gadget with a scrutinizing look. "Oh but you're absolutely right. I'm sorry, must have left the invitation letter at home. I showed you my grocery's list by accident. Didn't need anything, apparently. I didn't forget to bring the ID passes with me though." He showed it to lord Cole.

"Yes, your ID pass does state that you're dr. John Smith." Max mumbled, lifting his glasses. "I'm sorry, I didn't expect the sponsors to send so many people. There was already a whole group of you gents here this afternoon." Lord Cole apologized, but the frown was still there on his face. "All right then. Tell me, what do you think doctor?"

"Think what?"

"Of the paintings of course. Actually, I didn't care much about the sausages. The food that's being served here isn't exactly five stars. People come here to admire the artworks. So what do you think of my collection?" He asked, giving the Doctor a look as to say that he should be careful in stating his opinion.

"Er, marvelous, splendid. Very…colorful?" It wasn't that the Doctor didn't know anything about art. Au contrary, he once went into apprenticeship of the great Michelangelo himself and could chisel out a fine statue out of a lump of formless marble anytime, but he didn't had enough time to look around yet. He had been too busy with the nibbles to form a decent articulate thought about the 18th century artworks. "I like the er…shapes. Yep. Very artful." He nodded.

Lord Cole just stared at him with an expression that could bring out the early frost. "You don't have any opinions about them at all, don't you?"

The Doctor grinned sourly. "Not the slightest idea." He admitted, a tad embarrassed. Unlike his current companion, the Doctor was a rubbish liar at best, but there was something about this man, the way he looked at you with a mix of anticipated disappointment and fatherly strictness, that made him realize that keeping pretence was just pointless.

"Oh." Lord Cole's face warped from disdainful into something that might be described as somewhat pleased. "That's perfect!"

"I beg you pardon?"

"I don't like people to look at my paintings with a certain preconception about what they want see." Lord Cole pointed out. "All those horrid art scholar types that come to these sort of parties to spew their fixed ideas of how everything should be interpreted. I tell you, it's stiffening, kills the enjoyment of looking at something beautiful by analyzing it to death. You sir, have the right attitude. And I'm glad that I've finally met someone on this boring party that doesn't start to lecture me on my own collection as soon as I introduce myself."

"Well, It's a pleasure." The Doctor answered, a bit baffled. "I suppose."

"Sod those little sausages. Let me fetch you a drink." Lord Cole told him as he guided the Doctor to the nearby bar. "After that I'll show you the most prized beauties of my collection, and than we'll have a proper talk about art."

**6.**

After lord Cole got a large whiskey for himself and a Shirley Temple for the Doctor, they made their way through the gallery at a leisurely pace. Lord Cole showed him his favorite pieces, an angelic scene at the river where a fragile Ophelia sits on a rock and stares woefully into the distance, her father murdered, and by her sweet prince Hamlet forsaken. Then a painting that showed the proud and ambitious lady Macbeth, holding up dead king Duncan's crown for her husband like an archbishop would hold up the king's crown for coronation. The beautiful but fierce Titania, after she's been tricked by Buck's pink love potion, cuddling up against her ridiculous donkey lover Bottom as she lay dreaming in the fairy woods on a soft bed of willow boughs and underbrush leaves. But there was one painting that stood out amongst the others, not for its beauty or its craftsmanship, but for the fact that the Doctor couldn't associate it with any work of the great Bard. It hung in the largest of the five exposition rooms, and dominated the wall right opposite of the entrance. It was a portrait of what was possibly the most frightening entity that a man could encounter, and no one, who passed by in the gallery, could not be intimidated by it.

"Oh, that's very life-like." The Doctor muttered, gazing up at the 2-meter tall portrait of Death itself. "Not that I know how he's supposed to look like. To me, death always sort of happens, rather inconveniently, usually at the most rotten times, but…I suppose if he had a real physical form, this is how people would see him." He stared at the tall hooded figure. The skull that grinned without mirth, and the soulless gaze that regarded each man as equal in the knowledge that all life was only transient. His trusted scythe kept by his side, ready to cut through the thin threads of life.

"Impressive, isn't he?" Lord Cole took a good swig from his glass. Although he owned the painting and must have seen it at least hundreds of times before, he still appeared to be a bit unnerved by it. The Doctor didn't blame him. The dark figure in the painting was also giving him the shivers just by looking at it. It evoked something primal in the observer, and instinctively, you knew that you should be afraid.

"I call him Mr. Bones." Lord Cole joked mirthlessly, like a man facing a deadly disease.

"He could be the stuff of nightmares really. Why is this painting in your collection lord Cole? I'm sorry for being rude, but it has nothing to with Shakespeare."

"Ah doctor, that's not true, is it? Of course he plays a role in his works. Actually he didn't write any play without it. Well not the tragedies anyway, I never liked the silly comedies he wrote. But the tragedies, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, and let's not forget Titus Andronicus, all of them ending in murders or suicides, a blood-drenched dagger, a poisonous drink, deaths, deaths and more deaths. If anything, Mr. Bones here is practically a reoccurring character, a constant factor and a focal point around which all Shakespeare's stories evolve. Why, you could even say that Death, in many ways, was the real lead-actor in all of his great works."

"The eternal dark shadow of men who stays in the wings." The Doctor said pensively. "- waiting for you when the final curtains falls."

"That's very elegantly put." Lord Cole said. "But you're right. It's kind of intimidating. My dear wife never liked it. She forbade me to display it anywhere in the house. I had to keep it in storage for all these years. Of course, now that she has passed away, I can do with it what I bloody well like." It was difficult to cut through the sarcasm and catch the sadness in his voice, but the Doctor was a very good listener. "Are you married, Doctor?" Lord Cole asked him to take his mind off his late wife.

"No I don't know that kind of pleasure, sir."

"A girlfriend perhaps? You look like a man who needs a life's companion by his side."

"Well, er, I am currently traveling with a sort of companion, a friend."

"A male friend?" Lord Cole lifted a brow. You could actually see him thinking.

"Well, he's not that sort of friend. I'm not that sort of friend. We're more like friend-friends, buddies, flatmates, that sort of things." The Doctor driveled, feeling very awkward now. "He's that colleague I mentioned before."

"Does he know as much about art as you do?" Lord Cole said, amused. For the first time since the Doctor met him this evening, the corners of his lips were curved upwards instead of down.

"I should look for him." The Doctor opted, changing the subject. "I haven't seen him for a while. Let me introduce him to you."

**7.**

The Master had not made it far yet from the bar. He was still chatting with the brunette in the green dress, and was, judging by the location of his hand, which was obscenely close to her bosom, making quite some progress. Just when the Master was leaning towards the girl, and was about to kiss her full on the lips, the Doctor inched between the two early lovebirds and interrupted them.

"Ah Master, there you are. I was just having a wonderful conversation with our host about the paintings."

"I was about to indulge myself in this most gorgeous girl. Would you mind leaving me at it?" The Master told him reproachfully.

"Harry? Who is your friend?" The pouty brunette asked, hanging on his arm and eying hungrily at the tall handsome stranger.

"He's not a friend. He's more of a colleague." The Master answered, noticing the look on her face. "And don't you even think about it." He added strictly. "He snores like a bagpipe and he has the most aggravating habit of warming his freezing feet against your back." Remembering the narrow bed that they had shared in Saint Emilion with a slight shudder.

"I thought you said he was your life's companion?" Lord Cole asked skeptically.

"What?" The Master said. Oh this was rich! He raised his eyebrows in amused astonishment, turning around quickly.

"I didn't!" The Doctor threw his hands up in defense. "I really didn't. I said you were a friend of mine. A travel friend." He tried to prevent ridicule from the Master. "An annoying, lustful idiot of a friend, but nevertheless a friend."

Lord Cole gave the Master a sturdy handshake. "I'm Lord Maximillianus Cole, pleased to meet you mister - ?"

The Master seemed to have lost his tongue. He just kept opening and shutting his mouth, like he was a goldfish in a very dirty oxygen deprived fishbowl.

"Er, his name is Harold Saxon." The Doctor replied for him. "I'm sorry, he's a bit autistic. His brains could shut down just like that when it comes to straining his poor social skills."

"Really?" The brunette cooed. "Oh, my poor, poor little Harry! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Probably because I didn't know I had it in the first place." The Master grumbled.

"Well they never know it for themselves, do they? Still, you should see him at the blackjack table." The Doctor joked, gaining a not very subtle elbow in his back from the pissed off Master.

"Ah, I see some old friends arriving." Lord Cole said, doing very little to make it sound less like an excuse. "I think I pop over to say hi. It's been very interesting to meet you doctor Smith, and you sir." His grey eyes rested on the Master for a while, and narrowed a little. The Master was strangely nervous till the elderly man turned back to the Doctor. "I wish you both a good evening." He said with a slight nod.

There was a visible relief on the Master's face after lord Cole left. He grabbed the Doctor by the labels of his coat. "We're leaving this party, NOW!" He told him forcefully. He let go of his baffled fellow Timelord and headed for the exit.

"Hey, were are you going? I thought you were going to stay over at my place?" The girl asked, tip-tapping after him on her high stiletto heels. "Hey! You can't just leave. Is this because you're autistic? It doesn't matter! I really don't mind!"

The Master wheeled around and pressed a kiss on her lips. Waste not, want not. He thought. Then he turned to Doctor. "Are you coming or not? Because in case you forgot, you removed the biolock last week, so I don't need you to fly the Tardis."

"You don't have the keys to ge-" The Doctor stopped midsentence and patted down his pockets. Obviously, they were not there anymore. The Master was getting alarmingly good at pick pocketing lately. Annoyed, the Doctor looked up, only to find that the Master had already marched out of the gallery. He grunted and followed him.

"Tell him to call me!" The brunette called longingly after him, before she remembered that she forgot to give him her number.

**8.**

"What was that all about?" The Doctor asked when they were back inside the Tardis. "You were running away like you've seen a ghost. Sure that girl was a bit clingy, and she clearly seems to have serious problems with men judging by her poor taste for this evening, but generally, she was harmless."

"I didn't run away because of her, you idiot. Don't you know who that was you were talking to?" The Master said anxiously.

"Who? Lord Maximillianus Cole? He owns all the artworks in this exposition. Quite an eccentric man. He has one really strange painting that is so incredibly creepy that you wouldn't even belie-"

"Lord Cole, Lord Maximillianus Cole." The Master repeated.

"Yes. I told you that, what's wrong with it?" The Doctor asked, getting irritated.

"Lord Maximillianus Cole, who prefers to be called Max, because people cannot ever spell it right."

"He does prefer to be called-"" The Doctor wrinkled his brows. "Wait a minute, I didn't tell you this. How did you know?"

The Master swallowed. "Because he told me, when I was dating his darling daughter."

The Doctor's face went a little pale when he realized what the Master was telling him. "Lord Cole is Lucy Cole's father." He muttered, and winced as if he had swallowed a lemon.

"And you just introduced me as Harold Saxon to my future father-in-law who wasn't supposed to meet me until about what? Three years from now?"

For a moment, the Doctor repeated the Master's goldfish in a dirty bowl impression. "We should leave." He replied, sternly.

"Definitely." The Master concurred, and both bolted to the console.

The Doctor was just starting up the Tardis engines when the Master, getting too hot to be comfortable, removed his long coat. When he draped it over the railing, the newspaper fell out. Just by accident, he got a look at it.

The headlines had changed.

"Doctor, wait." He picked up the newspaper and began to screen over the front-page. His eyes went wide with horror.

"What? What is it?"

The Doctor grabbed the paper from the frozen Master's hands. It read:

One dead in mysterious family drama. London. UK. Police began investigations after a young member of the prominent Cole family was found dead under mysterious circumstances in their estate. With little details known so far, the police reported that the family's butler, mister Peeves, returned after a short family visit to find Lord Maximillianus Cole's only daughter Lucinda Cole, aged 24 deceased without any visible injuries. The coroner's further report ruled out poisoning. There were also no traces of a break-in, the spokes man added.

"Oh this is bad." The Doctor muttered, feeling the hairs at the back of his neck rise. "Really bad. Whatever is happening now inside that museum, it is altering the time stream. This paper is showing us what could happen if we let it take it course. If we don't interfere now -"

"Lucy's going to die." The Master whispered with a far away look on his face.

"We have to stop this. Whatever it is. We can't leave." The Doctor said, shutting down the Tardis.

'I haven't met her yet. I didn't even know she existed." The Master stared down at the paper. Bright-faced, doe-eyed Lucy. Age 24, she was still so very young. But how old was she when she killed herself in order to stop him from coming back, 29?

Only 29 years old.

"The headlines only changed because we are inside the Tardis. She is allergic to the violations in time space and picks these things up as easily as a six years old picks up measles." The Doctor rambled. "The time stream itself is not altered. Not yet at least. It's not too late to stop it from happening. Master, are you listening?"

The Master turned and stared at him with hooded eyes. "Maybe we should leave this as it is, Doctor." He said in a hoarse voice.

The Doctor was stunned. "This isn't a joke! Don't you realize how serious this is? If Lucy was killed before you met her, you wouldn't be shot, and you wouldn't have returned wrong. You wouldn't have brought back the Timelords and gone through everything you've gone through, good nor bad, if she wasn't your wife. She made you who you are today and without her you could just-"

"Be removed from existence, like a bad stain in the fabric of reality?" The Master scoffed.

"Don't tell me you don't want to save her because you still resent what she did to you."

"I don't resent her. I want…I want to protect her." He shook his head. "Doctor, what kind of life is she going to look forward to? If she survives this, she's got another 5 odd years to live, and 3 of them she will spend in absolute misery because of what I am going to do to her. The things I've showed her…" He swallowed, remembering how he had wiped her hopeful smile from her face when he opened the door for her to Utopia. The blank, suffering look in her eyes when she finally realized what kind of monster she had married. And all that time they had been together, he had enjoyed tormenting her, and he had loved to watch that light of kindness slowly die out in her to be replaced with nothing.

He had ruined her.

"I don't want that to happen to her again. She's much better off without me, even if her life turns out shorter this way." He told him determinedly.

There was long silence in which the Doctor just stared at the Master with a look of severe disbelief on his face.

"Oh you sad man. You sad, selfish bastard." The Doctor finally said, gaining a puzzled look from the Master. "You say that you don't want to do anything about it because you want to spare her? You just want to spare yourself! You don't want to life with a conscience that suffers her demise like a dagger to the heart. That's why you want to let her die. So your crimes could be erased, just like yourself." The Doctor shook his head. "Cowardice is not a virtue, Master, but it suits you rather well." He said bitterly, and left the console room in disgust.

_**TBC**_

Next chapter will be posted next Saturday, the 11th of December. In the meantime, if you like this story or have any comments on it, please let me know. Hit the review button below.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**1.**

The Chinese on the corner of Gerard Street overlooking Newport place was one of the Doctor's favorites. It still had that old-fashioned greasy tables and neon-bright atmosphere that went hand in hand with bang-up traditional Chinese food. He was seated at the table by the window, and was waiting for his order while nursing a hot cup of black tea when the Master walked in. Silently, he came over to his table and sat down in the chair opposite to him. The Doctor kept staring at something seemingly more interesting that happened outside, determined to ignore his companion.

"So." The Master finally said, after the silence was getting insufferable.

"So." The Doctor echoed, but still not looking at him.

"So this is where you've been hiding from me." The Master tried, in his odd, very cranky way to start up a conversation. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

"What are you doing here?" The Doctor asked.

"You didn't exactly leave anything in the fridge. All I could find was half an olive on the bottom of a moldy jar. I got hungry."

"Well, tough, you're not getting my wallet this time. Pay for your own meals."

The Master rolled his eyes and pouted his lips in irritation.

"Why don't you just tell me to go get a job as well?" He scorned, sounding far less friendly now.

"Oh is that gonna help?" The Doctor finally gazed at him, but his look wasn't very pleasant either. "I'm sorry, but I though I was living with a selfish little twat for the last one and a half year, one that keeps sticking his fingers in his ears every time I try to talk some sense into him. I must be mistaken then."

"Oh sod it!" The Master hissed, no longer playing nice. "I would actually, you know, listen. If you weren't so stuck up righteous all the time!" The Master pressed his lips together and winced. Indeed, what exactly was he doing here? He wasn't one for apologies, and his mood swung rapidly from wanting to whack the Doctor on his face till his ears popped to telling him that he was sorry and had actually changed his mind, but as always, the words got stuck inside his throat and he was only getting more and more frustrated.

Luckily, the Doctor knew him longer than today.

"Is that you trying to tell me something?" He asked, dropping his armor of sarcasm a little.

There was a brief moment of silence. Then the Master sighed deeply, pressing the palms of his hands on his eyes for a moment to shield his embarrassment. "I fear I am going to regret this, but…maybe, we should stay…to set things right." He peeked back at the Doctor, pleading silently to make him say no more on the subject.

"Right." The Doctor slapped on the table and wheeled away from the window. He knew when it was time to show compassion, and the best thing he could do for him right now was to act like nothing had happened. "Let's eat first. Then we'll make up a plan. My brains work better when my stomach doesn't try to attract all the attention."

A waiter appeared and served two large dishes on the table.

"Here you are. One order of crispy duck, one order of prawn spring rolls, and one order of kong pow chicken." The young man said, glancing over at the Master. "I see your friend has finally arrived, I'll bring an extra bowl and plate. Fork and knife or chopsticks?"

"Chopsticks, and a large brandy please. If you have it?" The Doctor replied for the Master.

"I'll see what I can do." The waiter said and went back to the kitchen.

The Master gazed over all that food.

"You were expecting me then." He remarked.

"Yep. I could smell your resentment and self-reproaching anger all the way from Covent Garden." The Doctor replied, offering him a spring roll.

"Oh please." The Master sneered. "As if the stench of your righteous indignation is not wafting three blocks around China town."

"I just knew you would do the right thing." The Doctor remarked with a smile, and bit down into the crunchy roll.

The food went down well, just like the brandy.

"So what's the plan?" The Doctor asked the Master after the waiter had cleared the table. The Master was slightly surprised by the question. His companion had never asked him to think up a plan before, mostly because…well because he was the Master and what he came up with was usually a great offence to the safety of the universe, or to rational sanity in general.

"So you're letting me in charge?" He sniggered, half-thinking that this must be some kind of a joke.

"It's your wife." The Doctor replied calmly.

The Master crossed his arms and snorted. "You're serious?"

"I think you owe her at least that."

The sarcastic smile disappeared from the Master's face.

"So." The Doctor said, leaning over the table with his hands folded. "I'm listening."

**2.**

In the early morning hours, right after the last of the staff had shut down the halls after last night successful opening-party, and before the cleaners showed up to tidy the place up for the first day of exposition, a woman materialized in the gallery. With one well-aimed shot of her sonic screwdriver, she beamed a signal to two of the CCD cameras nearby. For the upcoming four hours, the security guards behind the desk would be watching a video recording of the empty exhibition room running on a loop, leaving her to carry out her business in peace.

Walking silently on high heels that were padded with rubber soles, she crossed the large room till she was in front of the panting. The dark hooded figure stared down back at her with his timeless, soulless eyes.

River curled her lips in a little smile. "Hello there Mr. Bones! It's about time you wake up, don't you think?"

She put her black backpack against the railing and took out what she needed, which wasn't much; a bowl, a bundle of willow twigs, a second smaller bowl, a lighter, and…

She took out the small bottle with the crimson liquid and held it against the dim spots that hung above the artwork. It might be her imagination, but it appeared as if in its reflection, she could see two blue lights flare up in the grim reaper's dark sockets.

What did that cabbie Drazek tell her again? _Once he is awake, you better get the hell out his way._ Her stomach tightened, and she drew a deep breath to steady her resolve. She popped off the cap and poured the whole content into the small bowl, which she placed on a bed of willow twigs in the larger one. Her hand was slightly shaking when she switched on the lighter.

_There goes nothing. _She thought, and lit the dry bundle.

As soon as the twigs caught fire, the red liquid started bubbling, causing a crimson sliver of smoke to rise. Up and up it went, curling and dancing like an alluring madame, till it reached the painted face of Death itself. The dark holes in the skull lit up with a spark of cold blue light. River stopped breathing when the head slowly turned to gaze down at her.

YOU.

There was no movement of the lips. Death had no lips, considering his face is but a skull, but there wasn't even a movement of the jaw. She just heard his voice, clearly and loudly inside her head, speaking to her.

It was a dark, low rumble, like a hungry beast growling or like the dying sound of a tree struck down by lightening in the woods. She swallowed hard while taking a couple of steps back.

YOU. YOU HAVE SET ME FREE OF MY PRISON.

"Yes I did. How incredibly nice of me, don't you think? You're not going to kill me now are you?" River asked hurriedly.

Her heart skipped a beat when he emerged from the painting, his slender but tall frame bulging the canvas till it stretched thinly and produced his form, a nightmare child wading through his mother's membranes, impatient to be born and let mankind know his wrath.

Death had now entered this world and stared down at the woman in front of him, the blue lights in his eyes narrowing as he contemplated.

NO. He finally said. REMOVING YOU DOES NOT AID ME IN MY QUEST.

River sighed of relief. "Glad we made that clear. Now then, tell me." Her voice turned darker. "Will you kill him?"

WHO DO YOU MEAN?

"The man who've put you in there of course." She responded a little impatient. Honestly, why else would she release such a monster into this world? "He locked you inside that painting for centuries. He should be removed because..."

IT IS MY DUTY.

River halted and watched how Death took out his scythe from underneath his long robe. She had no idea where he had hidden it all the time but it was a good thing he didn't have any flesh on his body or else he might have given himself a nasty cut. He inspected his tool closely. The crescent blade was so thin that it was almost translucent.

I AM CREATED FOR ONE SOLE PURPOSE. He told her. THIS PURPOSE I SHALL FULFILL.

The hooded figure turned. Despite that he took long calm strides, he moved across the room at a nightmarish speed.

"Wait!" River shouted. "I must warn you. There is this man called the Doctor, he's traveling with him. He will try to protect him."

NO ONE CAN ELUDE DEATH.

"But you mustn't hurt the Doctor. He's a good man you see."

I MAKE NO DISTINCTION IN THE NATURE OF MEN. IN MY EYES, ALL MEN ARE EQUAL.

"But he's the Doctor! You can't…"

The dark hooded figure had disappeared, dissolved completely into the shadows.

"What are you doing here?"

She squinted her eyes when a bright torchlight was shone directly into her face. Facing her was a young man in a guard uniform that was at least two sizes too large for him. He was holding the torch in one hand while in the other, he held out his baton.

"Hands up lady! Don't move!"

"Oh." River said, realizing that it was just some boy from security. She flashed a charming smile at him. "I'm sorry. I was at the party tonight and I got a bit tipsy. Must have dozed off."

"The guards check this place before they close down. How could they have missed you?" He noted smartly.

"I just came out of the restroom, and suddenly everybody was gone, and the lights were out." River shook her head as if she was amused by the silliness of the misunderstanding while she picked up her backpack unnoticed.

"You fell asleep in the restroom?" The young guard scoffed. "How is that possible?"

"Oh sweetie, I can fall asleep anywhere and anytime, trust me." She said, throwing another dazzling smile at him.

"I'm sorry ma'am." He replied, noticing the smoking bowl of beetroot soup of whatever she was boiling on the floor. Satanic chicken blood sprang to his mind. The museum attracted all sorts of weirdoes. "I have to take you into arrest." He took a pair of cuffs from his belt and was heading over to her.

"Arrest me? What have I done?"

"Trespassing in the middle of the night."

"But I told you. I am a guest." She answered indignantly. Her hand slipped inside her backpack.

"Believe me ma'am, you aren't exactly dressed like one." The young guard replied, observing her tightly fitted black cat-suit that lacked much of the glamour of a cocktail dress.

"The museum was closed since 2 AM. Nobody comes in except for burglars."

"Well you better tighten up security then." She smirked, and activated the transporter that was tucked away inside her backpack. "To be frank, even your grandma can get in without a ticket." She added with a smile before she was teleported back to the ship, leaving a very gob-smacked security guard behind.

**3.**

The plan was simple, even tame, considering it came from the Master. The change in the time-stream must have something to do with the exposition that was sponsored by the Infinity Corporation, for it was the only factor that the Tardis could detected as incompatible with the original time course. Getting back inside the museum the following day was easy enough. They just had to pay for a ticket, although the Doctor kinda regretted that he didn't let the nice ticket lady pre-order for him the night before. He had to spend a good 50 minutes waiting in line outside. Wailing kids and a cranky Master wasn't the best of combination for a cheerful crowd.

"Where do we start?" The Master asked, when they were finally inside.

"There has to be something unusual. Something that catches our eyes because it sticks out of time like a sore infected wound." The Doctor replied as they moved quickly pass the paintings.

"I'm not the Tardis." The Master complained. "I don't have a build-in homing device for the obscure."

"But we're Timelords. If the alteration starts here, than something in here must send our Timelord senses tingling, right?" The Doctor's eyes quickly scanned the line of paintings.

"They're just strokes of paint on a ratty canvas. There's noting strange about them."

"Wait." The Doctor suddenly stopped running, causing the Master to bump into his back.

"What now?" He grumbled.

"That painting." The Doctor muttered, tracing back his steps.

"Can you be more precise? We're not exactly in shortage of them at the very moment."

The Doctor walked into the room where the grim reaper's portrait hung. "That painting." He said, and gazed with the rest of the astonished crowd at the empty canvas. The Master came to stand next to him and also looked up.

"Well, that's one clear example of capital destruction. Modern art, is it? It's bloody worthless, even a blind Oodanian moleworm could have done a better job with a toothbrush." The Master scorned.

"It is not supposed to look like that!" The Doctor addressed a man standing in front of him with a museum ID card pinned on his breast pocket.

"Excuse me, but what happened to this painting? It wasn't like this yesterday."

"Oh you must have been at the opening party then. We kinda hoped no-one had noticed." He said, removing his hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead. "To be frank, we don't know sir. The curators are still working on it." He nodded at the small team of men and women wearing white gloves who were currently examining the canvas up close. "They think it might be a chemical reaction of some sort. The problem is that you never know what the old masters put in their special homemade paint mixtures."

"You mean the figure in that portrait just vanished?" The Doctor pressed on. "Who had noticed it first?"

"There was Billy, a young lad from security. He was the first to see it. He also claims that a woman was here last night, a burglar, he said. She left all this weird stuff behind. He didn't catch her though. Instead he keeps mumbling about her being a ghost or an alien. Poor lad. He's in a bit of a shock."

"Where can I find him?"

"Why do you want to know? You're not from the newspapers are you? The museum can't use any bad press right now. We're in enough financial problems as it is with the budget cuts and all."

"I'm not a journalist. I just want to talk to him. I am a doctor."

"Ah, but that's a fortunate coincidence." The man replied, scratching over his scalp. "Billy could certainly use some medical attention right now. He's in the locker room, third floor on the left. Just knock and one of the cleaning boys are bound let you in."

"Thanks!" The Doctor said, and pushed a very reluctant Master into the direction of the stairs.

**4.**

Cole manor was in a festive mood. Outside in the garden, the evergreens were decorated with strings of twinkling lights, and wicker reindeers were grazing the lawns, while mistletoe, and crabapples and shiny baubles of all sizes and colors adorned the doors and windows. Lucy loved this time of year. Even if it wasn't snowing, the beautiful ornaments always cheered her up from the early winter gloom. But it was also around this time of year that she missed her mom the most. Mrs. Cole was one of those mother hens whose sole mission around the festive season was to keep her family happy, well fed and warm. Lucy could still remember the amazing apple pie her mom used to make. When she took it out of the oven all hot and crisp, the entire house filled up with that most wonderful smell. Two Christmases had come and gone since those last happy moments, and although it wasn't the same without her, Lucy was determined to try to make it better this year, for both her own and her dad's sake.

"Kate, where did you put the apples that we bought this morning?" She shouted over her shoulder, wiping a strand of hair from face with a hand covered in dough. "Oh and there is definitely something wrong with the recipe." She added, flipping the pages of a splattered cookbook. Called the joy of baking, she had yet to agree with the title. "This dough is all wrong, it's dripping down my fingers."

Kate, her current partner in this crime against gastronomy and best friend in the world, came to her rescue by pouring a handful of flour over her hands.

"Just keep working it. Keep kneading till it stops sticking." Kate said and put a bowl of cut apple slices in front of her. "Here they are, cleaned, cored, and cut." She added brightly. "Oh, and I added a dash of sugar and a little brandy. Give it a little bit of a kick."

"Thanks." Lucy huffed, blowing the annoying strand of hair out of her face. "I swear Kate, if it wasn't for you, this pie is going to turn into a disaster."

"Patience. It's not baked yet. You can still ruin it. I have that faith in you." The cheeky brunette joked, popping a slice of brandy apple into her mouth. "Is he up yet?" She asked, leaning against the counter.

"It's only one o' clock in the afternoon. What do you think?"

"He doesn't mind me staying over, does he? Because I would go back to my flat if my crappy landlord would finally lift his fat arse from the couch and fix the heating. It's freezing in there. "

"Of course not. My dad is delighted to have you around."

"He didn't say anything to me since I came here." Kate nicked another slice from the bowl. "He used to chat the ears off my head when I first came around. Telling me all sorts of silly nonsense. Now he's just…so quiet."

"He misses mom." Lucy replied. "It's hard for him. Especially around this time of year." She paused, remembering how she and her father had visited her for the last time at the 26th of December, in the hospital, the very night that she passed away.

"Well, I feel sorry for him, but he can't keep being sad for the rest of his life." Kate muttered. "He's just making himself more miserable by shutting people out."

Lucy let the thin threads of dough drop back on the flour-covered tabletop. "That's why we're making an effort." She said, thoughtfully. "A Christmas party with dad's friends and family, to cheer him up."

Kate was just out of the kitchen for a short moment when the doorbell rang. She didn't want it to wake up her father, so instead of letting Peeves answer it, she wiped her hands on a towel and made the short walk through the hallway. When she opened the door, she found an old man standing at the porch. He was ancient, his spine was bent, and his skin was thin and translucent, revealing the spider web of veins running underneath.

"Can I come in?" He wheezed, his voice was hardly any louder than the whisper of a tiny mouse.

"Um, excuse me, but who are you? What do you want?" She asked as politely as possible. The man looked miserable and neglected. Perhaps he was a poor homeless person, begging from door to door in the hope that people would for once be kind to him in this time of year.

"Do you need help? I can call someone." She offered kindly.

"I want to get inside." He answered in the same weak kitten voice, and shivered under his thin coat.

Lucy felt sorry for him. It was cold and wet outside, and the poor man obviously had no one to care for him. No wonder he sounded a little confused.

"Hey Luce, who's at the door? Whom are you talking to?" Kate's voice rang behind her through the hallway.

"Invite me in." The old man repeated more pressingly.

"Well, um, of course. Come inside. I'll make you a cup of hot tea to warm you up." Her last words had just parted from her lips, when the man in front of her suddenly changed. The flesh peeled off, leaving only the white bones of his skull behind. His spine straightened, and stretched like a lump of soft dough till he was at least two and a half meter tall, and his clothes changed into a cloak, that hooded his horrific face. Lucy wanted to scream, but couldn't. Two blue orbs that burned inside the hollow sockets gazed at her, and pierced into her frightened soul. She gasped when the figure walked right through her, as if he was solid and she was but made of air. It felt like a dagger of ice was plunged right into her heart.

"Luce? Lucy? Are you all right?" Kate said, rushed over to her. Lucy looked like she was about to faint. The Grim Reaper ignored Kate's presence, but disappeared again into the shadows underneath the staircase.

"Luce! What happened? You look horribly pale." Kate said, worriedly.

"I…I don't know." Lucy steadied herself on her friend's arm. "There was someone at the door. I went to answer it." She told Kate.

"There is no-one here."

"No? Oh but there was. There really was."

"Luce, I think you need to sit down. You're shivering."

"I'm not…I didn't imagine it."

"What did you see?" Kate looked her in the eyes.

Lucy bit on her lower lip while the memory of the short, strange encounter was fading fast, leaving her with very little to work with.

"I don't know." She finally said, covering her eyes. "Maybe I'm really just imagining stuff."

**5.**

"Well, that was rather pointless." The Master mocked. "Three hours wasted in a sweaty locker room, only to find out that some obscure Earth woman, used some sort of satanic ritual involving chicken blood. I could have saved us a lot of time if you had just let me hypnotize the little monkey. Instead you preferred to slowly wedge these crumbs of so-called wisdom out of his peanut-sized brain with a toothpick."

"He was in a state of shock. His mind was fragile. Anything manipulative would have sent him into a catatonic state. If anyone should be able to relate to that it should be you. Anyway after what happened to that horse in France I wouldn't want you to hypnotize anyone for sure."

They were heading back to the Tardis through the busy afternoon crowd of Oxford Street.

"Do these humans ever stop buying senseless crap?" The Master complained, watching a round woman in her forties drag two bags full of Christmas tinsels out of a shop. "For Gallifrey's sake, how many glitter baubles does one need? What is she going to do with them, stuff them inside a turkey and serve it up with gravy to her children?"

"These people have what they call a cheerful festive spirit. Something I've long since given up that you'll ever understand." The Doctor responded closing the Tardis door behind him. "Right." He clapped in his hands. "What's next?"

"You really are serious about me taking the lead in this, aren't you?" The Master laughed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Oh Come on! Show me how brilliant you think you are!" The Doctor challenged him with a grin.

The Master cocked his head to the side and gave him a most insolent look. If the Doctor wanted a competition, he could certainly oblige him. He rolled his eyes, sucked in a deep breath and started in a monotonous voice to sum up their options. "The mysterious woman left a handful of artifacts that could or could not explain the disappearance of the figure in the picture. From the boy's rather hazy description, we know that it was some sort of bowl with a bright red liquid in it, possible chicken blood or, if you are a vegetarian, borsjt soup. Unfortunately, they disappeared after our supposed hero ran away when he witnessed the female vanish in to thin air, so we have no lead left on that. Now we've checked the spot where she had disappeared, but couldn't pick up any traces of teleportation-dust with your out of date sonicscrewdriver, which makes her either a ghost, or someone who uses a more advanced third generation teletransporter, which is roughly more than 99% of the civilized universe, including the worm-like life forms with the primitive brainstem on Hispalplazu, minus the sorry excuse for a civilization on this backwards rotating ball of mud called Earth. We scanned the entire painting but found that there was nothing peculiar about it. There was no secret portal, it was not a cheap optical trick, which leaves us practically with all of our possible leads eliminated, except for one…"

"Lord Cole." The Doctor concluded.

"Not a chance." The Master objected grimly.

"You could disguise yourself. She doesn't need to recognize you." The Doctor opted. "We could use a shimmer. I like a good shimmer. We need a most excellent one though, if we want to fool lord Cole as well." He added, remembering how the old gent saw immediately through the trick with the slightly physic paper.

"What if she sees through it as well? Lucy is not that bright, but still…"

"Look, do you want to save her or not?" The Doctor asked sternly while he adjusted his sonic screwdriver.

After some hesitation, the Master sighed and grudgingly gave in.

"Then…let's shimmer!" The Doctor said and aimed the sonic right at him.

**6.**

The doorbell rang and Peeves the butler came down the stairs of Cole's manor house to answer it. When he opened the door his steady, slightly haughty gaze met that of a round, hamster-cheeked man with a pleasant smile. He was wearing a cap with the words "animal control" stitched on it, and he carried a plastic pet-cage with him.

"Ello there." He greeted enthusiastically. "Good afternoon. I'm from Woodgreen animal center, and my name is Jim. I'm sorry to bother you sir, but you've got a bit of situation here."

"Do I?" Peeves asked, he was quite suspicious about people at the door who didn't seem to have a surname. "We didn't call for pest control."

"Oh no you didn't, but your next door neighbor Mrs. Hannigan did. There was stray cat in her garden. It was scaring off the birds, but she couldn't get rid of it. So she rang us. I tried to catch it. Had it cornered at the back, but then it jumped over the hedge into your property. He shot up a tree and the last time I checked he's still sitting up there."

"What's going on?" Lucy asked, appearing at the front door.

"This gentleman is from pest control. He's here to inform us that there is a wild cat in our back garden." Peeves told her.

"Would you horrible mind if I come in and fetch him miss?" The funny gent asked. "You know how cats can be. They climb up trees easily, but can't always get down afterwards. If I don't fetch him he'll probably be stuck up there the whole night."

"I don't think we –" Peeves started.

"By all means sir. Of course you can come in." Lucy interrupted the butler. "The entrance to the backgarden is just through kitchen. Peeves will show you the way."

"As you wish ma'am." Peeves replied, professionally suppressing a roll with the eyes.

The stray cat had nestled itself in a narrow niche between the branches, and stared down at the group of humans with inquisitive gray-brown eyes. He was small for a grownup cat, black as sin, and hisses angrily when Jim climbed up the ladder to get him.

"Oh, the poor thing." Lucy cooed when the cat was brought back down. "He's shivering all over."

"It was drizzling this morning. His coat got wet, and being up there in the wind isn't exactly a treat." Jim said, holding the cat in his arms. "I better get him back to the shelter quickly."

"Ma'am, I wouldn't touch it." Peeves warned when Lucy started to stroke the cat. "It's a stray. You never know what kind of diseases it is carrying."

"He still looks healthy enough." Jim assured Lucy. "I'll make sure he gets a couple of shots up his little bum to get rid of the most nasty germs. You know, parasites are quite common in strays." The cat responded by digging his nails right through his shirt and into his nipples. It was hard for Jim not to cry out and drop the nasty pet. Luckily, Lucy didn't notice it.

"Hey, don't be scared." She told the animal, scathing behind his ears. "This nice gentleman here is going to help you find a new home."

"Oh afraid not. He's at least 6 years old. Look at that gray in the whiskers and his coat. Nobody is going to want him for a new pet. They only pick up the young ones."

"But, what's going to happen to him?" Lucy asked with concern.

"What happens to any animal who stays in the shelter for too long, really. We have to put them to sleep."

"That's horrible!"

"We can't keep them all forever, not with all the budget cuts coming our way. A bloody shame. Oh well, at least he still got six weeks, maybe he'll get lucky." Jim said, and was about to put the cat away in the plastic pet cage.

"Wait." Lucy muttered. The black feline was staring at her with a most heartbreaking look. "Can't you just release him?" She tried.

"Oh no, that's not allowed miss. Domestic cats are not wild animals. They shouldn't be left wandering the alleys on their own. They'll become pests."

"Well, if no one wants him, he could stay here with us." Lucy opted, gaining a horrified look from the butler.

"You want to keep him miss?" Jim asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Ma'am, are you sure?" Peeves objected. "This animal comes from the street. It could carry diseases, and I very much doubt he's housetrained."

"He's got a point there." Jim admitted, earning him another claw at his chest. "Still, cats are remarkably clean animals. They mostly do their business outside in the garden." Jim added, clenching his teeth.

Lucy came forward with a smile of adoration on her face. "Can I hold him?"

"By all means." Jim told her thankfully, and pulled the cat from his chest with the sharp nails still stuck to his shirt.

"Oh he's beautiful." Lucy picked up the warm ball of fur and stared into the cat's eyes with an almost love-struck gaze. "What shall I call you? Hey? I have no idea really. Peeves, do you know a good name for a cat?"

"How about the Urinator? Or Poo Poo Butt pehaps? I'm sure it's quite fitting."

"Don't be like that." Lucy laughed.

"Well, I'm sure that what goes in must come out too, ma'am."

"Peeves doesn't really like pets." She explained to Jim. There was a pause. "I think I might call him Harry." She said, with a dreamy look at the animal she was cherishing in her arms.

"Well um…That's not a name for a cat." Jim remarked with his brows furrowed.

"I know…It's just….Well, he looks like a Harry to me." She smiled apolitically. "I know it's silly, but I just can't think of a better name for him."

In her warm and caring hold, Harry was purring contently as if to tell the others that he fully agreed.

**7.**

The best thing about being small and nimble was that you get around everywhere, no matter how small the opening, or how narrow the crack, as long as your head could fit through the rest of the body would miraculously be able to follow. And the way how these furry feline creatures perceived the world, it amazed the Master. As a Timelord, his nose had already been most sensitive, but now his sense of smell had become phenomenally good. He knew when the cook in the kitchen was washing off a filet of fish under the tap all the way from under the staircase. He could pick up the scent of a woodland mouse sleeping in its burrow underneath the heap of wood behind the garden shed from inside the house, and he could follow Lucy's warm perfume from her bedroom where she had been 4 hours ago, all the way down to the dining room where she was currently helping out with the decorations for the festivities later this evening. He would like to keep an eye on her, but Peeves wouldn't let him get anywhere near that part of the house, afraid that he might leave a cat-hair or two on the costly linen or bump the precious crystal from the table.

When the agitated butler almost succeeded in stepping on his tail, Harry left, reminding himself that he should drop a dead mouse in one of the butler's shoes left behind in the locker room.

In the hallway where the broad staircase circled up to the second and third floor, the black cat sat down on the carpet and licked his whiskers. If anyone had noticed him sitting there, it would seem that he was contemplating mayhem.

Instead, he was turning his attention to the paintings in the hall. Lord Cole had an exceptionally fine collection, some of them were on show in the city of London, but most of his cherished specimens were still kept at home. Lining the staircase were works of 18th and 19th century art depicting mythical scenes, idealized sceneries of the countryside, and portraits of blushing young ladies and red-nosed young men, family members of the long Cole bloodline. To the Master, they were all quite dull and ordinary, till something did capture his attention.

In the second painting from the right that directly faced the dining room, a shadow moved over the canvas. It appeared behind the sitting maiden in the garden, and passed silently through the painting till it reached the other end of the frame where it disappeared. It was so very fast that you could have missed it, if you would only blink your eyes. He came closer to inspect it, his tail sweeping of nervousness. Then the figure appeared again in another painting that hung a little higher up the staircase, this time sneaking behind the back of a two sleeping bloodhounds. Harry climbed up the steps and saw how the it vanished into yet another painting depicting a winter scene where a group of men were cutting out blocks of ice out of the frozen river Thames. The shadow dived into a hole in the ice and moved underneath the frozen river till it came up in the next painting, splashing out of the waves in a sea battle scene. In every painting it showed up, it kept moving upwards, and Harry was jumping after it with quickening pace. When the shadow finally reached the third floor, it vanished underneath a door at the end of the corridor.

He sniffed the air. A strange, moldy smell that reminded him of freshly upturned earth came wafting through the gap. Then he jumped up and slapped his paws on the door handle, while thumping his bodyweight against the panel. The hinges squeaked and the door went slightly ajar, just large enough for him to squeeze through. After a quick look around, the Master went inside.

He was in what seemed to be a spare room. Out of use furniture had been put away beneath dusty white sheets. The two windows were closed up with shutters, leaving the relatively large chamber in twilight darkness although it was still in the middle of the day. He paced between the lines of neatly stacked chairs, dressers and chests till he came across a big rectangular object hidden beneath a purple hanging. Convinced that it was yet another painting, Harry took one corner of the fabric in his mouth and dragged it down. It indeed revealed an artwork, a most unusual one, showing only a dark, endless corridor, lined by two rows of doors. It looked like a gloomier version of the real corridor outside. A most awful feeling crept over his spine. He stared at the far end, where a hooded figure stood. The dark figure was _moving_, coming closer, and closer, and closer. Harry raised his back and tail and hissed threateningly.

The door opened, followed by the squeaking of the floorboards.

"Kitty kitty kitty!"

He recognized that voice as that of Kate, Lucy's friend. He panicked. She should get out of here. It's not safe.

"Oh here you are! Lucy was looking all over for you." Kate went over to the painting and was about to pick Harry up when he hissed and clawed at her in an attempt to scare her away.

"What's suddenly the matter with you? You weren't like this earlier on." She backed away from him and stepped on the purple fabric.

"Did you do this? You naughty little cat! Maybe that Peeves is right about you." She picked it up and was going to drape it back over the painting when she came face to face with a grinning skull.

"Oh. Dear God!" She gasped, feeling her heart flutter inside her chest. "I thought it was bloody real." She studied the Grim Reaper figure in the painting, who was now standing so close to the periphery of the canvas that she could see the small ridges and sutures running over the dome, painted with the greatest precision.

"That's very well done." She muttered, noticing that her voice had a weird quavering quality to it. "No wonder they keep you stored away up here." She added. She was about to hide the hideous painting when a white boney hand shot out of the canvas and grabbed hold of her. Kate's eyes grew wide in stunned horror. The fingers that had closed around her wrist were nothing but a claw of moon-pale bones. A voice, as chilly as the northern wind in the dead of winter, spoke to her in her mind.

WHERE IS YOUR FRIEND'S HUSBAND?

Kate actually wanted to scream, but was completely incapable of doing so. Her cry for help sat like a useless lump of ice in the back in her throat. Lucy's black cat jumped up against her leg, making such clamor that she knew that he wanted her to get out. Too late. She couldn't feel her legs either.

WHERE IS LUCY COLE'S HUSBAND?

"I…I don't know what you mean…" She stammered. "Lucy…she is not even married."

A hideous sound came from behind her, like a talon ripping through skin. Although she dreaded it, she tried to turn her head to look when she was suddenly jerked backwards. The pull was conducted with such brute force that she literally flung back with her feet in the air. She finally opened her mouth to cry for help, but as the canvas opened and closed up around her, her screams of horror died a silent death. Harry leaped after her, his front paws were almost touching the other side when a blizzard of energy struck him and sent the little cat flying through the room. He smashed into a dresser, feeling a horrible crack in the mid section of his spine, and fell on the floorboards. Lying there as a weak bag of bloody fur, he watched helplessly how Kate disappeared inside the painting. Warm blood dripped into his eyes and slowly, he lost consciousness.

_**TBC**_

_**Next chapter should be up Tuesday the 22nd of December, meanwhile reviews and comments are much appreciated.**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**1.**

It was a good thing that lord Cole didn't keep any guarddogs on his premises the Doctor thought, as he watched the arrival of the first guests for the Cole's Christmas party while hiding in the hedges. The Doctor liked dogs, and he was confident that if Maximillianus had kept any, he would eventually be able to come to a mutual understanding with man's best friend, but it would draw some rather unwelcome attention to himself and distract him from his current mission. He had left the Master under the shimmer cloak with Lucy. The plan was that he would search the house for anything strange, and that later that night, the Doctor would pick him up and change him back.

To his embarrassment, it had actually briefly crossed his mind to leave him like this just a teensy-weensy little longer. The cute little ball of fur version of the master was just so much more pleasant to handle.

When more of the guests had arrived and the party inside seemed to be in full swing, the Doctor sneaked out of the bushes, straightened his blue bowtie and white dinner jacket, and plucked a bundle of mistletoe from the garden before heading for the entrance.

"Ello there." He smiled cheerfully. "Sorry I am a bit late. There was some terrible traffic all the way from London." He waved the psychic paper in front of mister Peeves.

"Welcome sir." Peeves answered, reacting slightly overwhelmed. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite get your name from your invitation."

"It's doctor John Smith. I could go for a cup of eggnog." He pushed the bundle of wet twigs in Peeves's hands and strolled inside as if he owned the place. "Oh and put these in a vase will you? They're for Max. A little something to spur on the holiday spirit."

He left the baffled butler at the door and went inside to look for the Master. He entered the drawing room where a good crowd had gathered around a beautifully decorated tree. They were nursing their drinks and busying themselves with casual chitchat. The Doctor retreated to the side of the room. Albeit the Master was disguised as a cat, he could still smell him, and the trail led him right up the large staircase. He was about to head upstairs when lord Cole descended, catching the attention of the crowd, who cheered and raised their glasses up to him.

"Hello my friends! I hope everyone is enjoying themselves." Lord Cole told them, gesturing that they shouldn't mind him and could resume the party. He bumped into the Doctor. "Ah. You're that interesting young man from the Infinity Corporation, aren't you? Doctor John Smith right?" He pumped his hand enthusiastically. "I never forget a face. What are you doing here? I can't remember asking my secretary to invite anyone from your company?"

"Oh I am here to apologize sir." The Doctor answered, working his brains quickly. "We were horrified when we heard about what happened to one of your priceless paintings. It's such a shame."

"Oh yes, that's horrible business what happened to the Grimm Reaper. The work wasn't that famous. I had not expected that there will be a nutter out there who wants to sneak past the security in the middle of the night to have a go at it."

"Did they find out what actually happened?"

Lord Cole shook his head. "The police have absolutely no clue. How they managed to get the figure to disappear while leaving the rest of the canvas intact is also still a mystery for the curators. The incompetence of all those involved just shows how well-worth my tax money is being spent." He added with a hint of sarcasm. "But you don't need to apologize. Although, I guess I could blame your office for coming up with the bloody idea of holding the exposition in the first place."

"Dad, have you seen Kate?" Lucy came up the staircase. She was dressed in a stunning red dress with thin spaghetti bands. Although she kept smiling politely at the other guests, she looked worried when she approached her father.

"No my dear. What's wrong?" Her father inquired.

"I haven't seen her since the late afternoon. She was helping me to look for Harry."

"Who's Harry?"

"Um, our new pet. I will show you later when I find them."

Lord Cole wrinkled up his face. "We've got a new pet? Since when? It's not a cat is it? You know that I'm allergic to them."

"Are you sure your friend just didn't went to mingle with the other guests?" The Doctor asked curiously.

Lucy shook her head. "She left her evening gown hanging in the closet. She has been longing to wear it for weeks. It's just too strange."

The house butler appeared at the bottom of the staircase. "Sir, another four minutes and it's time for your speech."

"Ah." Lord Cole mumbled. "Thank you Peeves. I almost have forgotten about it. Lucy my dear." He gave her arm a little squeeze. "Don't worry too much. She has probably just locked herself up inside one of the bathrooms upstairs to do her hair. For God's sake, you know how long that can take. Entire lifetimes are wasted on grooming by the fairer sex."

"If you don't mind, I'm going upstairs to look for her." Lucy told him.

"You do that. It's not like you haven't heard daddy's speech before. Besides, there's always next year, and the next." He grinned, and headed in the direction of the drawing room.

"I could help." The Doctor offered. Lucy turned and looked at the tall stranger.

"My name is John Smith by the way. An acquaintance of your father." He told her to ease the awkwardness.

"Well, I guess two pairs of eyes see more than one." She shrugged, granting him a hesitant smile, and led the way up to the second floor.

"The guest rooms are this way." Lucy told him. The Doctor pointed his nose in the air. "You said she was looking for your pet?" He asked, gazing up the staircase leading to the third floor.

"Um. Yes, my cat Harry. I've only got him since this afternoon. I was afraid he had trouble with settling down and that he might have run away." A thought hit her. "Do you think she's out in the garden, still looking for him?"

"Oh no, it's cold and wet outside. I don't think our furry friend would venture beyond the threshold of the backdoor. He's probably hiding somewhere in a quiet spare room, and if your friend was looking for him, then that's where she is too." He rushed up the next flight of stairs, taking two steps at the time till he picked up the coppery scent of the Master's blood halfway through. His hearts skipped a beat in alarm.

"Are you sure that they are up there?" Lucy asked hesitantly, following the Doctor as he suddenly spurred up the staircase.

"Mr. Smith! Is there something wrong?"

The Doctor stepped on the landing and ran up the corridor. He almost rushed by the chamber that Kate had entered, but he backtracked when he noticed that the door was left slightly ajar. Lucy went over to the Doctor, and gazed through the opening into the dark empty room. A strange chill ran over her body, as if an icy finger gently stroked over her back.

"Is she inside the old storage room?" She asked, gazing the Doctor in the eyes.

The Doctor, who had felt his senses tingling as well, took in a deep breath, and pushed open the door.

They entered. The Doctor noticed the stacks of furniture, half hiding the painting at far end of the room. Then his eyes picked up the strange dark spots that left a trail over the floorboards. It led to a small, quivering bundle of fur lying against a dresser.

The Doctor dropped on his knees, his hearts trembling. "Master?" He whispered. Gently, he stroked his fur. The hairs were sticking together with blood.

"Master? Master! Talk to me. Please!"

An awful silence followed that lasted a little more than a heartbeat, but for the Doctor, it was almost unbearable. Then the relief finally came when the injured animal uttered a string of weak mews.

"Oh." The Doctor replied with relief. "I'm sorry that I've let this happen to you. I should have come for you earlier."

"Mr. Smith!" Lucy called. Her voice was strained. She was standing near the painting, her hand covering her mouth. She was staring at something that was lying on the floor.

"What? What's the matter?" Carefully, he picked up the Master and came over to her.

"Her shoe. This is Kate's shoe. There's blood all over it." She said, visibly shaken. Then she saw the pitiful bundle of misery that the Doctor held in his arms. "Harry!" She shouted in horror. "What's happening here? Who did this to them?"

Suddenly, as if caught by the wind, the door slammed shut, leaving them standing in total darkness. Lucy gasped but the Doctor put his finger on his lips, and listened.

Someone was coming near. He could hear the soft whistle of shifting fabric, gliding past solid structures.

"Is it a burglar?" Lucy asked, really frightened now.

"I'm afraid not." The Doctor answered. He perched his ears and he picked up a second, strange scraping sound, like something heavy and made out of metal was drawn over a wooden floor.

_Doctor._

"Master?" He whispered. "Master, what's going on in here? What happened to Kate?"

"To whom are you talking to?" Lucy asked. "Who's the Ma-"

"Ssst! I can hardly hear him as it is!" He gentle nudged the cat's little head, urging him to regain consciousness. "Come one, what did you want to tell me?"

_It's the painting. Something dark lives inside. It took the girl. I couldn't..._

"It's alright. There was no way you could stop it." The Doctor comforted him. He felt with his fingers over his spine. It was broken, and the injury should have killed the Master stone dead if it wasn't for his accelerated healing capacity that kept protecting him, even now he was a cat. "You'll be all right." The Doctor told him with relief in his voice.

"Are you talking to my poor cat?" Lucy asked with wide-eyed fear and confusion. All of a sudden she realized that she didn't really know this strange young man that well. Hastily, she took Harry over from the Doctor.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor asked.

"I'm not staying here with you in this creepy room." Lucy replied with a terrified but resolute expression on her face. "Something horrible has happened here. I'm going to call the police to help me find Kate." She turned and was halfway across the room when a shadow of a tall lean figure leaked from the painting like an oil spill and covered the distance between her and the door with great speed, till it reached the fleeing girl.

The shadow caught up on her and separated from the floorboards, expanding till it stood erect right in front of Lucy. She stopped, frozen on the spot when it the darkness assumed its real physical form.

LUCY COLE. He told her in a graveyard voice.

Death's eyes glowed bright blue when he raised his scythe up high and was about to strike her.

"Who are you?" She breathed, right before the scythe swept down. A strong pull moved her backwards, as if she was but a little spider being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner hose. She was slightly aware that she hit and went through something semi-solid before her bum hit the surface of a well-polished floor. She slid over it with quite some speed till she smashed with her back against a wall.

"Lucy!" The Doctor's scream came to her from a distance. Blinking her eyes, she gazed dizzily around. She found herself in a dark, unfamiliar corridor, with a line of doors on each side. At the other end was this huge painting. She stared at it in shock when she recognized the scene. Inside that painting, like a framed window into another world, was the spare room where the Doctor was left on his own to face the demon. Harry jumped out of her arms and started mewing loudly.

"What have you done to her?" The Doctor shouted, having just witnessed Lucy disappeared in front of his eyes.

SHE WILL BE CORRECTED. Death stated, observing the Doctor with cold indifference.

"What are you? Tell me! Are you a Reaper? Did you come here to correct the time line? You don't need to kill Lucy Cole to do that! I am a Timelord, I would know if she is out of place, but she belongs here! You cannot remove her without injuring time!"

IT IS NOT LUCY COLE, WHO IS MY TARGET.

"But why kidnap her? Why her? What has she done that threatens you so much?"

SHE BECAME LUCY SAXON.

The Doctor breathed out deeply as he realized what the dark creature was telling him. The Grim Reaper was not after Lucy. He was using her as bait to get to the Master.

"Mr. Smith!"

Lucy's cry was muffled by a thick coat of paint and varnish, but the Doctor was still able to hear her. He turned and saw her trapped inside the painting, banging her fits on the canvas, begging him desperately for help.

"Stand back!" The Doctor told her, and sprinted forward, determined to get inside the cursed painting and get her out. He was about to jump over the frame when the canvas altered. The corridor vanished, but before he could stop, his sneakers touched ground on the other side, and the canvas was sealing itself behind him, leaving the Doctor trapped.

"Mr. Smith?" Lucy breathed. She stared anxiously at the painting when only a second ago, she had seen the Doctor rushing towards her to her rescue, but just as he was about to reach her, the canvas had turned black. She moved her hands over the surface, trying to push into it, searching for weak points, feeling like a rat stuck inside a deadly trap. Harry kept circling around her legs, mewing constantly. Caught in a blind panic, she didn't realize that he was trying to get her away from the picture. She held her breath in fear when the canvas bulked up.

A human form was trying to enter.

Lucy snapped out of her paralyzed state when harry dug his claws in her leg. She looked down, distracted for a moment. Harry mewled loudly at her and headed for one of the doors. Lucy, finally realizing that the emerging figure was too tall to be the Doctor, followed him.

"What do you want? Do you want me to hide in here?" She tried the doorhandle. It was unlocked. She pushed the door open and cautiously, looked inside.

Beyond the threshold was a gray field of black earth. Intimidated, she took a few steps back, but Harry was not having any of that. He pushed his flank against her calves, urging her to step through the portal. Behind her, the eerie sound of ripping canvas announced the return of the Grim Reaper into his realm.

LUCY. He called to her. LUCY SAXON.

She ran into the fields, clumsily staggering forward as she sinking away into the soft damp earth with her high heels. The door closed shut with a loud bang. It startled her, but when she looked back, the structure had disappeared, leaving a barren winter forest.

"Oh God." She took in her surroundings, still cherishing some hope that the bizarre entrance had led her into a part of land that she could actually recognize. A part of her father's estate perhaps, but the landscape was completely unfamiliar, alien even. It was either dawn or dusk, leaving very little light, but what there was revealed to her was a land ravaged by a recent fire. Everywhere she looked, the ground had turned black by the layer of ashes and sooth, and some of the larger trees were still smoldering. "Oh God." She muttered, feeling hot tears stinging her eyes.

A nasty cold wind cut through her thin dress and she hugged herself to stay warm. Not far in the distance, a flock of birds was circling around a small mound. She headed towards it, followed in her steps by her cat.

When she noticed that Harry had problems with keeping up with her, she carefully picked him up and carried him.

"I guess I owe my life to you." She told him, cuddling him for comfort. "You're my lucky Harry."

It puzzled her that he seemed to have recovered quite fast considering that his injuries had looked much more severe, but she didn't have the luxury of dwelling too long on it, for as soon as she was close enough to smell the stench, she became aware of what had attracted the birds to the site.

The small hill wasn't an ordinary heap of damp earth. It was a pile of dead soldiers, cut down in full armor. Some were missing legs, arms, hands, or heads, others were just a torso sitting in their own pool of blood. Amid this carnage, three emaciated figures dressed in layers of rags moved around like vultures, stripping the dead bare from their more valuable belongings and tossing their treasures onto a handcart. They were so foul that their skin looked grey, and their long hairs were spider webs of tangles. Lucy stifled a cry of horror when she saw how one of them drew a short knife, and cut a finger from a hand to remove a silver ring.

The three of them stopped with scavenging, and gazed at the strange woman in the red ballroom dress with three pairs of most curious, bloodshot eyes.

"Oh." One said, pointing a withered finger at her.

"Oh." Repeated the second one, struggling down the pile of corpses to study her more closely.

"Please." Lucy said, backing up. "I didn't want to disturb you. I am just – I am lost. I don't know where I am."

"You? Oh but you're not lost my child. You're the future queen of England." The second one said, and chuckled hysterically.

"Oh hail Lucinda Cole, the darling daughter of the lord of Duncaster!" Greeted the first.

"Oh hail Lucy Cole, the slayer of the dark lord!" Said the second one, as they all started to circle around her.

"Oh hail Lucy Saxon, who shall be queen hereafter!" Cheered the third.

"Wait a minute." Lucy muttered. "I know this. This is…" She shook her head in bewilderment. "This is insane. It can't be happening. Why are you calling me that? How can I be queen?"

"Oh but you will be. Once you're by his side. The most powerful woman in England." The first one assured her.

"Lucy, Lucy Cole, Lucy Saxon, who murdered and will murder the man she wedded and will wed, who was and who will fall in love with the man she met and is about to meet." Driveled the second one, who stretched out her hand to stroke over Harry's coat, but received a claw over her brittle skin in return from the animal. Angered, she was about to grab him by the neck when Lucy moved him out of her reach.

"Don't you touch him." She warned.

"Vicious!" The old witch spat. "Vicious and vile. Vindictive little creature. Vindictive little man."

"Vindictive, victorious lord. Master of time." The third one muttered, shaking her grey lion's manes.

"I know you creatures." Lucy mumbled. "I know this place. I recognize it from my father's study. There is a painting hanging above the woodstove mantel. It shows a scene from Macbeth. The one with the three witches on top of the heath, waiting for Macbeth to come to tell him his fate." She swallowed and stared at the three women standing around her. "I don't know how I ended up inside a painting, but you three are not talking about me. You're talking about Macbeth here. You're predicting _his_ fate. Not mine."

"We are what we are."

"And we see what we see."

"Today is not the day for lord Macbeth. Today is the day of lady Saxon."

"Stop this, please!" Lucy begged. Their eerie predictions were spooking her out. "Listen, I know I must be mad to ask three fictional characters for help, but I'm in trouble. I'm being chased by some sort of demon. Help me, please. I think he wants to kill me."

"You will survive."

"But I've just barely managed to escape." Lucy replied desperately.

"He will not harm you."

"He wants to save you."

"Just like the others."

"Who do you mean? What others? Do you mean doctor Smith?" Lucy opted.

"Three of them in total. There is Death."

"There is the Doctor.

"And him, Harold Saxon." The second witch hissed, pointing at her cat with her injured hand. "Nasty little bugger!"

"Harry?" Lucy let go of her cat. "My cat?"

"He's not what he seems." One told her wisely.

"Shimmer shimmer on the wall, who is the most haunted lord of all?" Chuckled the second. " I didn't kill my father, the drums told me to do it!" She mocked him, and burst into spiteful laughter.

" Maybe we should help her." Opted the third.

"Unveil the shimmer." Ordered the first. "Together."

"Straighten the back, cut down the coat, chop off the tail, and stretch out the nose –" Chanted the third.

"Pull out the claws, trim down the whiskers, return his own tongue, though it may be malicious -" Joined the second.

"Let him appear in his human form, before his past and future wife, a man reborn." Finalized the third.

The expression on Lucy's face was something between amazement, fear and utter shock. Suddenly, the Master stood in front of her, naked as the day he was born, and looking dazed for a moment as he had to adjust to the loss of a whole a bunchof feline senses while quickly regaining his own.

"You." Lucy stuttered, looking him up and down. "You are a fully grown man."

The Master looked down over his body. "Oh thank Gallifrey." He breathed in relief. "I'm back to normal. I was afraid I was going to be stuck like this till I ran into that idiot Doctor again."

"But…I've just held you in my arms." Lucy muttered weakly. "I've cuddled you and kissed behind your ears." She added with her cheeks flushing bright red.

The Master searched for a kind word to say to the poor startled girl. "And I really enjoyed that." He finally told her, and returned a weak smile. "Didn't you hear me purr?"

Lucy covered her mouth and spun around.

"Lucy!" The Master stopped her. " Calm down now, and listen. It wasn't my intention to let you see me like this."

"Are you a cat or a man?" She asked in confusion.

"I was disguised as a cat. It was a shimmer cloak. It's really not that strange."

"Not strange?" Lucy gasped. "This world I am in right now is not making any sense to me at all!' She told him, close to becoming hysteric. "If this is normal to you, if this -" She pointed at the three witches and the heap of dead men behind her. "Is _your_ world, then I really don't want to have anything to do with it!" She turned away from him and headed back the way she came.

"Lucy!" The Master shouted after her. "Don't go that way! He's searching for us. Let me at least go with you!"

"I don't want you anywhere near me, who ever the hell you are!" She warned him, and struggled further. He was about to head after her when a strong icy wind reminded him that he was not exactly clothed. Shivering like a wet dog, he earned another round of vicious laughter from the weird sisters. Grudgingly, he returned to them.

"That shirt." He pointed at a dead soldier who was about his size. "Take it and hand it over to me." He told one of them in a low voice.

"Why would I serve you? Fallen Timelord?" The second witch chuckled, but she quickly stopped when the Master drew out a sword from another dead soldier's belt and pointed the sharp edge at her thin bird-like throat. The others squealed in anger and were searching for weapons to attack him.

"Because." He told them, raising his voice. "You bunch of withered old crones may know the seeds of time, but you weren't able to stop it. You're old and slow, whereas I am quite quick with the knife. Reflexes like a cat, you see." He stared at the others, who were slowly lowering whatever sharp objects they were holding in their hands. "So, I would also need a pair of trousers, and shoes. If you ladies would be so kind to provide me." He added, and grinned.

**2.**

Lucy was becoming desperate. She didn't know where she was going. The battlefield went on forever, and she had lost her left shoe at some point after the heel got wedged between two large cobble stones. She had tried to hobble onwards with only one, but it was a lost cause. Now she was stumbling forward on bare feet over thick bushes with vicious thorns, leaving her with a dozen of tiny little slash wounds on her soles. To make matters worse, the last of the daylight was quickly fading. Soon the unfamiliar, ravished landscape would be swallowed up by total darkness. She was sure that she had heard wolves howl in the distance. The thought of wandering into them in the dark was absolutely horrifying. Perhaps, she should have let Harry or who-ever that man was accompany her. It was always better than to travel alone in this weird nightmare.

A wolf howled frighteningly close by, and she stopped walking, frozen on the spot by fear. When she picked up the crisp sound of leaves and snapping twigs, the noise slowly growing louder, she could literally feel her heart thumping in her throat.

"Didn't get far then." The Master told her, appearing from behind a tree.

Lucy finally dared to breathe again. "Oh my God, I though you were a wild animal." She told him with great relief. The Master was dressed in a soldier's outfit that was here and there stained with blood of the previous owner. He also carried a rapier under his leather belt.

"Me? No I only do the cat thing. Obviously." He smiled awkwardly at her. "Here, I thought you might need this." He handed to her a cloak made of out of horse hairs and a pair of soldier's boots. As she was freezing, she accepted his gifts without hesitation and hastily draped the course fabric around her shoulders.

"You shouldn't travel on your own. You'll get lost." The Master remarked when he watched her try on the boots. They were a bit too large, but still she was thankful.

"I was looking for the door where we came through." Lucy explained. "I went back to the exact spot, but it wasn't there anymore."

"The door was a temporal portal, a highly unstable one is my guess, since the Grim Reaper couldn't reopen it right after it was shut. I certainly won't expect it to reappear any time soon." He gazed at the horizon in contemplation. "It will be dark within an hour. We need to find a safe place to settle down. You don't want any wild beasts to pick up our scent."

He headed up hill into the direction of a small woodland at the edge of the field. Lucy hesitated for a moment before she decided to follow him.

Behind a low bed of moss-covered rocks and a fallen tree, the Master set up camp, building up a small fire to keep them warm throughout the night. Lucy settled down and watched how he removed the sword and stabbed it into the ground next to him.

"Do you think we really need that?" She finally dared to ask.

"No, I am just dragging this heavy thing around for the sheer fun of it. Of course it is necessary." He muttered, warming his hands by the fire.

"I suppose we will need it to keep the wolves at bay. But you can't use it against him." Lucy replied grimly. "You can't kill death."

"That hooded creature who went after us was not really death in person." The Master explained to her, suppressing a sigh. "Use your common sense. How could a metaphysical being suddenly become real?"

"Maybe it's magic?" Lucy opted in her naivety.

"Maybe that's preposterous." The Master snorted.

"Why not?" Lucy furrowed her brows in irritation. "The three stargazing witches became real, and we're inside a 18th century painting. How would you explain it otherwise?"

"Those toothless hags weren't real. Look, whatever that cloaked thing was, a Morterian, or a Timereaper, it's obvious that he has pulled you through a portal into a dimension out of time and space in which he could manipulate every parameter. He's like a fox who corners all of his chickens to one side of the coop to make the kill easier, do you understand?"

"Time and space? Morterians and Timereapers? What are you talking about, what are these things?"

"They're aliens. Just like me."

"You?" She lifted her pretty eyebrows in astonishment. "You are an alien?"

"Yes." He said rudely, feeling remorseful or not, he still got irritated by her, annoyed by the slowness of the human mind.

"And that's less preposterous than explaining this with magic?" Lucy wondered.

The Master sighed, recalling how long it took the first time to explain to her his identity. Unfortunately, he had no Tardis at his disposal this time around. It crossed his mind to hypnotize her, but he quickly dispatched the horrible idea.

"For the last time, there is no such thing as magic." He told her instead.

"Alright then, I guess I could believe he's an alien, but this is the backdrop from one of Shakespeare's most famous plays. Why would he chose to bring us here?"

"He didn't. The whole problem with making up your own dimension is that it is one hell of a job to maintain. He has very little control over the portals that connect his world with ours. We escaped through one of them, but have ended up in some forgotten corner of his realm." A though struck him. "How long ago did your dad acquire the Grim Reaper's painting?" He asked her.

"I am not sure. He used to keep it in storage all the time. It's been here since I was little girl, but, 16-18 years perhaps?"

"18 years." He mused. "That's more than enough time for him to try to dig himself out. Only he's not tunneling through walls. He has made escape tunnels through your father's paintings. I saw him move through a whole row of them, going up the staircase and into the spare room."

Lucy came to sit down next to him and studied the Timelord's face. "But if it isn't magic, how come you were a cat?"

"You know, I wish your father had the decency and the common sense to teach you to stop believing in the miraculous workings of fairy dust at the would-be appropriate age of 6." He mocked. "I was using a shimmer, initiated by a shape-shifting device. Normally, it only functions as a cloak, altering the light and therefore the perception of the viewer, much like a cheap optical trick. But this one is a little different. It also alters your biology, all bending backs and growing whiskers." He added sourly. He made a mental note to repay the good Doctor one day for this most wonderful experience. The use of a hot fire and a glowing stoker sprang to mind.

"So you really were a cat then?"

"Yes I bloody well was, now would you stop asking questions all the time?" He responded moodily.

Lucy stared back at him with widened eyes.

"Sorry. I didn't want to shout at you." He replied gruntingly.

"It's alright, I guess." Lucy said, but she was visible taken aback. "Are you always such fun to be with?" She replied without malice.

"Only when I'm with you, apparently." He gave her a sad smile. "Forgive me for my rudeness, but I had been turned into a cat, had my spine broken, been chased into a 18th century painting, and been goggled at by three toothless old hags wearing nothing but my birthday suit. Really, the day couldn't have turned out any better."

"I fully agree on that." She smiled back at him timidly. "I'm sorry for pestering you. It's just…everything is so overwhelming and strange. You have to understand, the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life, was that I fell from my riding horse when I was about ten and my broke arm. Compared to this…" She paused and gazed at the frosty starlit sky. "This is completely mad."

"Welcome to my world." He said, and gave her a reassuring wink.

"Really, is this the dangerous world of Harold Saxon?" She spoke the name with much curiosity.

The Master's mood darkened. "You should forget about that name."

"Well, it's you, isn't it?" She asked innocently. "I overheard the three witches call you by that name. Funny coincidence that I named you Harry when you were a cat." She moved closer to him, still studying his face. The gaunt cheekbones, the restless eyes with its cold piercing look, it evoked a strange sense of familiarity in her, as if she had been waiting for someone like him all her life. "Or is there also no such thing as coincidence?" She finally whispered, moving her hand up to his cheek, eager to touch his face.

"No." He replied. He grabbed her wrist and forced down her hand.

"They called me Lucy Saxon." She said, looking at him for an explanation.

"Don't ask any further."

"They said I was going to meet my future husband."

"I said, no more questions." He responded firmly. "And don't ever call me by that name again." He told her, his eyes shimmering with self-hatred.

Before she could reply, he stood up, pulled the sword out of the mud and left the campsite.

"Where you' re going?"

"I'm going to stand guard. Someone has to stay awake to keep the hungry beasts away." His face softened when he noticed the concern in Lucy's eyes. "You must be tired, try to catch some sleep."

"Don't you need to sleep?"

"My dear girl, even if I would force myself to lie down and shut my eyes, sleep would not come to me now." He answered with a haunted look, before he disappeared behind the stone bedding.

**3.**

Meanwhile, the Doctor was struggling with his own private little Shakespearian drama.

"For the last time!" He shouted, holding up a chair to shield off the thin but lethal tip of his raging opponent's rapier. "I am not the prince of Denmark!"

"Oh hold your tongue Hamlet! Don't mock me by shielding your cowardice behind that fake mask of madness. I can see through it like a pike through murky waters." Laertes answered.

"I'm not pretending to be mad! Do I look mad to you?" The Doctor backed away while Laertes kept attacking him, yielding the poisoned weapon in front of his face. "I'm perfectly sane, but presumably wasting my breath on a raging madman like you." Another swoop with the rapier and the Doctor jumped away on the platform where the royal elderly couple were seated, and landed with his backside on the queen's lap.

"Your majesty, surely you would actually recognize that I'm not your son?" The Doctor asked her urgently. "Tell him to stop!"

"My dear boy, let Laertes have this one attempt to restore his family's honor. He's in poor shape and already out of breath. You're winning." She told him, basking in misplaced motherly pride.

"Does it look like I'm winning? I'm barely surviving here!"

"I have full confidence in you!" Gertrude told him, and with a gentle push, urged him to stand up again to face his opponent.

"No help from mum then." Muttered the Doctor, glancing aside at the king. "And I can forget about dear uncle Claudius ever lending me a hand."

"Stop acting like a drunken jester." Laetes said angrily. "Pick up a sword and fight me as a honorable prince!"

"Not in a million light years." The Doctor replied, and jumped off the platform to dodge him. Leates swung his rapier at him while the Doctor still held the little chair in front of his chest as if he was trying to subdue a wild animal.

"If you choose to remain a coward, Hamlet, then by all means let me grant you a coward's death." Laetes told him, and swept his rapier down at the Doctor, who was just in time to raise the chair above his head to shield off the blow. The impact shattered the blade, leaving Laetes with a useless blunt metal stump. The Doctor watched with relief how the poisonous tip clattered on the marble. "Finally." He sighed, lowering the chair. "Time-out! No more of this!" He signaled, and leaned against a pillar to catch his breath.

Claudius clapped his hands, laughing like a man with severe toothache. "Wonderful. Well done you both. We will call it a truce for the first round." He rose from his gilded throne and picked a goblet from a servant's tray. "My dear cousin, this is to your good health!" He gestured to his servant. "Give him the cup."

The servant offered him the drink but the Doctor refused to accept it.

"Oh no." He breathed. "Not in this court where poison is king!" He was still ranking his brains for the reason why the hell he had ended up inside the last scene of Hamlet when Laetes, impatient to avenge his father and sister, took another rapier from the crossbeams and charged at him with his weapon raised. There was no poison this time, but sever the right artery with the sharp edge of the blade, and it still could be deadly.

Laetes was about to hack into the defenseless Doctor when the air in front of his target trembled like a mirage in the desert and River Song materialized in the Danish court. She grabbed the Doctor by his arm and immediately activated her transporter. Laetes's blade hit nothing but air as they both vanished from the scene.

**4.**

They materialized in lush green woodlands in the middle of a starlit night.

"Oh, my back!" The Doctor groaned, twisting his neck to straighten out the kink. "That thing is a killer!"

"Well you gave it to me." River told him, seemingly unaffected. "Don't be such a wuss. It's not that horrible. Even I got used to it."

The Doctor gazed at her with a perplexed expression on his face.

"Oh I almost forgot, hello sweetie." She smiled and greeted him with a couple of kisses on both cheeks. "Did you miss me?" She beamed.

"River, River Song, what are you doing here?"

"Oh getting you out of trouble, getting into trouble, you know, the usual." She noticed the startled expression on the Doctor's face. "You look spooked. What happened? When is the last time you've seen me?"

"I..." Looking at her, the Doctor remembered how he had lost her in the Vastha Nerada-infested Library. Suddenly he felt a wave of relief and happiness wash over him. Without another word, he took her in his arms and hugged her tightly. River reacted a little amazed to the Doctor's response, but let him express his joy.

"I guess we are not going to compare diaries then?" She asked after he had somewhat composed himself.

"Not this time." The Doctor told her. "If you don't mind."

"Right. Spoilers." She mumbled, before she checked her teletransporter. She furrowed her brows after she took in the readings. "Shit. I don't think it has worked!"

"What? What hasn't worked?"

"The teleporter of course." She took the device from her wrist and starting fiddling with it. "It was supposed to bring us back into the time stream. This isn't right. We're somewhere in Great Birnam Woods according to this thing."

"Ah." The Doctor mused, gazing up at the stars. "That's Macbeth! Oh I love that part with the witches! Macbeth shall never vanquished be until, the Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill, shall come against him." He quoted in a dramatic voice. "The sky doesn't make much sense though." He scrutinized. "It's like someone has gathered up all the stars and scattered again them at random."

She gave the teleporter another twist and a tap, but instead of activating it, the lights switched off completely. "It's dead." She concluded in disappointment.

"You shouldn't have done that twisting bit." The Doctor pointed out. He was only trying to help, but decided wisely not to go in on that once he had seen the look she gave him. "Anyway. It doesn't matter."

"Great! Now we're both stuck in here, stranded inside one of Mr. Bones's Shakespearean escape tunnels. I do hope you have something brilliant cooking up inside your head because I've no idea how to get us out now."

"Your teleporter shouldn't have worked outside our time space continuum anyway. I was surprised that it lasted as long as it did." The Doctor wrinkled his brows. "Wait a minute, did you just say Mr. Bones? How come you know about Mr. Bones?"

River winced and bit on her tongue.

"Actually, how did you know where to find me? It wasn't like the last time, I didn't receive any distress calls."

"Well, I did try to contact you. Didn't you receive my message?"

"R.S. River Song. The warning about the Nightmare Child, that was you?"

"The Shadow Proclamation sent me after you. They've been trying to track you down since you vanished with the Master from the 21st century." She gazed at the Doctor with a serious look in her eyes. "Doctor, I have to warn you. You're traveling with a very dangerous man."

"You're with _them_?" The Doctor turned agitated.

"They only recruited me because they knew I would be the only one who was able to talk some sense into you. I didn't mind, since it was in your best interest. Plus I get to wear some really cool outfits." She joked.

"Look, I know how the Shadow Proclamation still sees him as a potential threat. Whatever they have told you, he has changed. He is a better man now." The Doctor responded firmly.

"He's a murderer." River Song told him strictly. "And he is going to be your undoing if you don't let him be apprehended to allow justice take its course."

"Last time he was led to court, they executed him. That's not my kind of justice."

"Oh, you can be so stubborn sometimes!" River responded. "That's not some harmless, innocent man you're trying to protect! Why can't you put your misplaced sympathies for this monster aside and see him for what he truly is?"

"If you're working for the Lady Shadow Architect and the Judoons, I am not going to listen to you."

"It's not just about what is the right thing to do. He's a real danger to you." She paused, hesitating whether she should tell him. She had sworn not to reveal what she had seen to anyone, but she had known the Doctor for a very long time, and that determined look on his face told her that it was impossible to change his mind otherwise. He genuinely believed that the Master was good, and he would defend him till his very last breath. Unless…

"The Lady Shadow Architect, she took me to the planet of snow and ice to see the Ood elders. They showed me, Doctor. They showed me traces of the future, the horrible things that are about to become reality if the chains of events that will lead to it aren't stopped in time. The symbol of the three, the Restoration of the Four…the Rise of the Nightmare Child." She gazed the Doctor in the eyes, and begged him to listen. "Doctor, the Master is going to kill you."

**5.**

"You're not a killer."

The Master glared up at Lucy. She had left her spot by the comfortable campfire and found him sitting on a cold bed of raised rocks overlooking the fields.

Lucy pointed at his sword. "You're not really going to use that thing."

"And what makes you come that glorious conclusion?" The Master scoffed, raising his eyebrows at her.

She shrugged. "You don't look like a murderer to me." She told him gently, hugging the cloak tightly around her body against the freezing cold.

"Ah." He muttered. "First impression can be deceptive sometimes. In this case it's just completely and utterly wrong."

"After you just left, I had some time for myself to think things over."

He rolled his eyes and sighed deeply. If there was one thing he dreaded more than a horde of rampaging Daleks or one of his current Timelord companion's endless prattle sessions, was his ex wife having a though of her own. It wasn't that she was stupid. Lucy was naïve, but certainly not dumb, and that was exactly why he found her questions often so bothersome.

"It can't be all just coincidence. Even if those three witches were just fictional characters, what just happened has to mean something." She tried. "Why did you come into my life? You and your friend, that doctor Smith, why did you want to protect me? What am I to you?" A hesitant pause followed. "Tell me, and please be honest. Were those witches right? Am I going to be your future wife?"

A sad smile crossed the Master's face. He gazed back at those gentle, hopeful eyes, and realized that it was too late.

Lucy had once told him, just after they were engaged, that although she had admired him before they met face to face on that fateful afternoon at the bookshop in Regent Street, the moment she had laid eyes on him, she had fallen hopelessly in love. It had been love at first sight, as if by some cruel twist of fate it had always meant to be that Lucy Cole would one day become Lucy Saxon. He couldn't bare the thought of that, knowing what he knew now. With pain in his hearts, he wondered if she would still make the same, unlucky decisions if she realized who he truly was. If he told her what kind of hardship and grief lay in store for her, would she not chose differently, and abandon this foolish crush and stay away from Harold Saxon for the rest of her life?

"Yes." He admitted to her. "You will become my wife, but not if I can prevent it."

Lucy had certainly not expected this answer from him. "Why would you want to do that?"

"I'm not a good man Lucy." The crude smile turned into a grimace. "I've killed. Hundreds of men, women and children. In fact, I've murdered so many that I've lost count by now. All those savage years of murderous madness, melting into one blood-soaked fevered dream." He gazed into the distance as he made this confession to her, feeling to shameful to look at her. "You're lucky that I've just woken up from it, or even you would not have been spared, knowing how keen I was on revenge."

She blinked her eyes in bewilderment. "You risked your own life to save me. You came to look for me after I ran away from the witches. You can't be such a bad person."

"I've destroyed the lives of millions, and I am going to destroy yours, if you still decide to marry me. It will be your undoing." He added, giving her a firm look.

She shook her head. "How do you know all this?"

"I'm a not just some sad middling alien species, I am a Timelord. Our race can travel through time and space. What I am telling you now, has already happened. In a way, I am only here to make amends."

"You're serious? You're telling me not to fall in love with you?"

"See it as a friendly warming. That's more than any of us ever gets." He told her coldly.

"I wasn't, you know." She said after an uncomfortable moment. Her cheeks were flushed red. "I mean, I barely know you." She added timidly.

There was a long silence between them as they both gazed over the frosted fields, the silhouettes of dead trees, and watched how the night's sky in the eastern horizon retreated for the frail mist of dawn.

"The sun will be up soon." The Master finally told her, and rose to his feet. "We better be moving on."

**6.**

"I don't believe you." The Doctor said, staring back at River with a shocked expression on his face.

"It's true. I saw it. Doctor I saw it with my own eyes. The Master will rise as the Nightmare child and bring destruction to the whole of the universe." River told him.

The Doctor shook his head in denial. "I would not allow that to happen."

"You will not be able to stop him."

"He won't change back to the way he was. Not now, not after everything he has gone through."

"But the Ood elders -"

"What they have shown you is just the potential outcome, a possible future, it can be prevented, even reversed if we act quickly and wisely. And the dumbest thing to do right now is to abandon him and allow this alternate fate twist and mangle him into the very monster that you fear." He told her determinedly before he turned around and walked away.

"Doctor!" She called. "Doctor! Where are you going?"

"I need to find him. If you know where we are, I bet the Judoons are after him too."

"Let me come with you. Let me help."

The Doctor glanced back and returned her a most skeptical look.

"It's not like I suddenly agree with you or anything." She answered, marching ahead. "I just want to stick around to make sure you're not going to do something stupid."

"Promise me that you're not going to report him to the Lady Architect." The Doctor urged her.

River gazed at him agitatedly before she finally agreed with a slight nod.

"Right." The Doctor smiled, somewhat relieved. "Come on then. Professor River Song, running with the Doctor, it will be like old times."

"And like the times that are yet to come." If there is still a future left for any of us after the Master is done. She added in her thoughts, determined to fulfill her secret mission.

The light of the stars started to fade. Dawn was soon to arrive. As they ventured through woodlands, and made their way between barren trunks and prickly undergrowth, they were greeted by the frail birdsongs of the very first morning birds.

"Listen. Beautiful, isn't it?" River whispered. "It's like the ancient forests of Shadunshi." She glanced back at him, hopeful to see a sign of recognition on his face. But this was a much younger Doctor, one who had not known her for so long to remember the good times they had on the little dwarf planet.

"What did the Ood elders exactly tell you?" The Doctor asked. He had been so caught up in his own troubled thoughts that he had not even heard River's remarks.

"Not much. You know how they are. Oh come sit with the elders of the Ood. Come share the dreaming. Don't sit too close to the flames, your hair might catch fire, that sort of stuff. When it comes to the interpretations of what was shown, they could explain very little themselves."

"Well, they've always been a race of very few words." The Doctor answered, remembering his own dream session went quite vividly. "What did they show you? Can you recall any of it?"

"It was all a bit hazy really. " River shut her eyes for a moment, trying to dig deep inside her memories. "I saw the symbol of three, marked as a merging between the Greek letters alpha and omega in a triangle shape. It has started showing up everywhere. Not only here on earth in the 21st century, but also in space, throughout the entire history of the human race. It hasn't been there before."

"That's exactly the same symbol as on the Infinity." The Doctor muttered. The Infinity Corporation, does it have anything to do with that?"

"I…I don't know. All I saw was a spaceship, apparently abandoned except for a little girl. A human girl."

"That's Rachel." The Doctor told her. His hearts were sinking as he realized that the prophecy of the Ood elders had already begun to shape their time stream. "What else, what else did you see?"

"A woman, red hair, feisty attitude, a bit too noisy for my taste. She is going to get married, and on her wedding day, she's wearing a pearl earring. Only, it's not really a pearl. It's something else."

"Wait a minute. Red hair, loud mouth, Donna! I could be Donna! But why? Why Donna?" The Doctor muttered to himself. He racked his brains but couldn't figure it out right away. "Alright, go on, tell me more!"

"A young man, a scientist perhaps. Certainly a bit nerdy looking, dark rimmed glassed, a pale complexion as if he hardly ever sees daylight. I saw him sitting behind a microscope, conducting some kind of experiment. Outside the lab, there is a marble slate mounted on the walls commemorating the founder. He's working in the Rachel Boekbinder's Institute for neurological science."

The Doctor mouth dropped open when he realized what this meant. By saving Rachel, the Master he had helped to create this future.

"The elders told me that these three people were somehow connected, they said they were like the fine threads in a web, feeding the black spider in the middle. They were key to the events that will follow."

"Tell me more." He said, with growing anxiety.

"The Restoration of the four. The drums shall rise again. I saw another woman, chestnut hair, piercing green cat-eyes. She is lost in time and in great trouble. She's standing on a scaffold, facing the guillotine in front of an angry crowd. Her head is pushed down and her hair pulled back by the executioner. While her neck rests on the blood stained chopping board, dozens of decapitated heads stare back at her from the grimy basket underneath. The blade drips red droplets over her pale skin."

She looked at the Doctor, who urged her to continue.

"The elders told me that she would be the spark that lights up the inferno. The Master of old will return, the bloody rise of the nightmare child, bringing with him the drums, the destruction of all of creation, and ultimately…your demise." She paused, and studied his face. "Do you know her?"

"No. Not yet." The Doctor replied worriedly.

"And the others?"

"Some. Well, actually, most of them. Oh this horrible! I was there all the time, right by his side. It was staring me right in the face and I didn't notice. Didn't think it could do any harm to let him tweak the timeline a little. Well that's what you get if you pretend to be lord victorious, just for a second. You destroy the bloody universe!" He stopped rambling and gazed back at her in shock as the realization hit him. "I've done this. All that the Oods have shown you, I'm to blame."

"Doctor. It's not your fault."

"I've let him save Rachel. I should have stopped him."

"You can still prevent it from happening. If you would just let me –"

"No! I know what you are going to say, but no! Let me help him. Let me do this my own way." He picked up pace, eager to find Lucy and the Master. Soon, he recognized a familiar scent, coming from the edge of the forest.

"Doctor, wait!" River yelled as she watched him ran out into the fields. In the dim morning light, she could see two figures approaching. One was dressed like a 16th century soldier of fortune, while his companion was wrapped up inside a thick cloak. The pair looked exhausted. The Doctor turned to her before they were in hearing distance.

"Not a word about this to Master. Do you understand?" He told her directly.

"But –"

"Promise me."

River sighed and rolled her eyes. "All right." She grudgingly agreed.

"Finally, there you are. We've been walking for miles now." The Master complained when the Doctor showed up. "Do you have any idea how bloody frosty it gets in these highlands?"

"Sorry. Sorry. I was stuck inside a scene from Hamlet. They though I was the prince of Denmark and tried to kill me. Why is the shimmer gone?" The Doctor asked, regaining his breath.

"We ran into a couple of witches. They were so kind to remove it. If I had to wait for you, I would have already choked on a fur ball."

"Doctor Smith." Lucy gave him a hug. "Oh I'm so relieved. I was afraid that the Grim Reaper might have taken you."

"Actually, I'm just called the Doctor. There is no point in keeping pretence now." The Doctor sighed.

"You don't say." The Master replied sarcastically. "Hang on, what's that sound? Did I just hear a very bad plan being flushed down the toilet? And didn't that little gem of ingenuity came from you?"

"Don't be so smart." River told him sharply. "If it wasn't for the Doctor, you'll still be imprisoned on the dead planet of Gallifrey."

The Master took in the Doctor's new recruit. "And who is this? Hamlet's mother?"

The sinister expression on River's face triggered the Doctor's sweat glands.

"I'm River Song." River answered. "The Doctor's companion. A very loyal one." She gave him a cold look. "You're the Master. The man who is wanted in seven intergalactic regions of the universe, with a death-sentence hanging above his head in more than 12 different time periods. You're what they call a villain."

The Master smirked. "You seem to know an awful lot about me."

The Doctor and I, we go way into the future." She replied. "There are no secrets between me and him."

"Apparently. So tell me Doctor, what else does she know about me?" The Master asked him, crossing his arms over his chest. "Anything that amuses you endlessly and is horribly embarrassing to me, perhaps?"

"Don't look at me. I didn't tell her anything." The Doctor defended himself. "Well, maybe I will. She's has a time manipulator. It's very difficult to keep track of things."

"Why is she here?" The Master asked disapprovingly.

"I came to rescue the Doctor." River answered for herself. "And you." She gazed at Lucy. "You're Lucy Cole. I must say, you look more lovely in real life than in your photographs."

"Yes well, glad we had time to get all acquainted." The Doctor said, clapping in his hands to draw attention away from River. "Now let's try to get out of here before skelletor shows up again, shall we?"

"Why are you so nervous?" The Master asked with suspicion.

"I am not nervous. I just don't want to hang around here too long. Didn't you just complain you were cold?" He pulled River away from the Master and Lucy. "So come on, let's get a move on."

"Do you actually have any idea where we should be going?" The Master asked.

The Doctor fished his sonic out of his breast pocket. "The sonic screwdriver has a homing function that can track down the portals." He held it out in front of him while the tip of the device already started flashing. "It's receiving a signal, coming from over those hills. So that's were we're heading."

**7.**

"You know." The Master told him while they crossed the field under the watery afternoon sun. "I've never seen you with older women before. Are you sure she is the right type for you? I imagine it would be like traveling with your own mother."

The two girls were walking in front of the Timelords. "Hey! I heard that!" River snapped, glancing over her shoulders.

"It's just that you're so much more used to younger specimen." The Master continued without so much as pinch of consideration. "I though you had rather good taste with the last girl you were with, that Martha Jones. Such a fine figure and pretty as a picture. I don't know what to make of this one, other than to question whether the taste for riper, plumper women comes with advancing age."

"If you want to insult me, could you at least have the decency to lower your voice? I can hear every bloody word you say." River fumed.

"Harry. Please don't be so rude." Lucy begged. "She risked her life to get here to help us."

"Oh please, she's here to rescue you and the Doctor. Judging by her thoughts, she couldn't care less about getting me out of peril." The Master remarked with a grin.

"Are you reading River's thoughts?" The Doctor asked him. "Don't do that! You can't!" He told him urgently.

"What's the bloody harm in that?" The Master chuckled. "It's not like I'm picking the brains of some genius here. It's all just a muddled mess of womanly emotions and suppressed sexual tension towards a certain Timelord. Oh, and a good dose of gut-wrenching loathing towards me of course, let's not forget that." He smirked and winked, earning him another hostile look from River.

"I am serious. Stop it immediately!" The Doctor barked, fearing he might find out about the predictions.

The Master just pouted his lips. "You spoil all the fun of dragging that gorgon along Doctor."

They reached a dead tree on top of a hill. A family of crows was nesting in the branches and looked down over the strange company with much curiosity.

"It should be here." The Doctor muttered, keeping his eyes on the readout of his sonic. "Were standing right in front of it."

"I can't see any doors." Lucy remarked.

"The readings are accurate." The Doctor muttered. "Which leaves us two options. Either the portal has already come and gone, or…"

He stepped back when the air in front of the tree started to tremble, and a white blinding light washed over them. The Doctor shielded his eyes and kept staring into the glow.

"It is about to appear." He added, when a wooden door materialized out of nowhere.

"Is this going to bring us back?" Lucy asked.

"It could do that." The Doctor nodded. "Or I could also lead us right into another painting, but we'll never know if we stand around looking at it. These things are highly unstable, another minute and it might just disappear again." The Doctor stepped forward and opened the door to take a peek. A warm wind stroked his cheeks when the doorway opened to a beach. He stepped through, followed by the others.

"Ah, warm Mediterranean climate, sunny skies, oh, I even got sand pouring inside my shoes." He beamed a silly grin at his companions. "We're still inside a painting, but things could be worse."

"Where are we?" River asked, gazing around.

"Where ever we are. We're stuck again." The Master commented, pointing out the quickly vanishing door. "Let's just hope this place is not swarming with cannibalistic Macras who are going to invite us for lunch."

"The last time I met them, they weren't exactly capable of holding a conversation." The Doctor muttered, remembering the reversed form of these crustaceans hiding out as scavengers in the underground of new New York. "I think we might be on a island. Look at this beach, it is turning around the corner on both sides within our view."

"A bloody speck of an island where we're bound to starve instead of freezing to death. Now that's a great improvement." The Master remarked mockingly. "Although, we could start eating each other. In which case my preference goes to get rid of her first." Nodding in the general direction of River Song. "That should lighten up the mood."

"We're not going to starve. Another door should show up soon." The Doctor noticed the alarmed look on River's face. "Don't listen to him. He doesn't mean a word he says."

"Oh I do actually." The Master responded, grinning evilly. "Did he ever tell you about how I came back wrong and had to constantly sustain myself with human flesh? The liver was my absolute favorite, all bloody and raw."

"You are a monster." River said, genuinely appalled. "Rassilon should have gotten rid of you."

"Oh such a wicked tongue your companion has Doctor." The Master mocked. "You really should teach her better."

"Enough of this!" The Doctor said firmly, rubbing his temples to soothe an upcoming headache. "You two, stay away from each other as far as possible!" He pointed out. "And no! I'm not picking any sides!" He added, before either of them could vent their objections to him. Frustrated, he moved away from the group, and went to sit on a rock on the other side of the beach to think things through.

"What's wrong with him all of a sudden?" The Master muttered, surprised by the Doctor's anxiousness. "He's awfully moody since you showed up." He glared at River. "Now I can imagine that women like you can drain the fun of out of every male of about any species, but that's the Doctor we're speaking of, the man who thinks the phosphorous carousel of the great Mingelinga Stat is a most excellent theme park ride, and whose human equivalent would have invented the casual Friday concept just to be able to wear his collection of silly cartoon ties." He approached her, crossing his arms as he stared her in the eyes with an air of contempt. "So tell me, what's going on?"

"Oh how I wish I could tell you. Right in the face." River hissed, hardly making an effort to shield her own scorn. "But I promised not to. So for now, I will hold my tongue."

"Did you mean what you said?" Lucy sounded quite upset. "Did you really _eat_ someone?"

"I told you, I am not a good man." The Master responded, glancing over at her.

"No, he's a monster. And you better stay away from him, Lucy." River said with a bitter smile on her lips. "Or you might get horribly hurt."

A dangerous sneer of a smile crossed the Master's face, and he was about to do something really stupid when the air above the sea suddenly turned dark, and high waves splashed over the beach, reaching as far as their feet. From the foam of the sea, a spirit appeared. He was almost naked, with strings of seaweed draped around his torso. His features were fine and chiseled, while his eyes glittered like stars.

As if he was greeting his superior, the creature bowed deeply before the stunned Master.

"All hail, great master, grave sir, hail!" The spirit exclaimed.

"Although I do like to be greeted with such enthusiastic servitude, I must ask, and what are you supposed to be?" The Master replied, cocking an eyebrow.

"Oh but I am Ariel, whom you have rescued from my dire wood-bound prison. I have sworn to serve you, great magician, till the day you set me free."

"Of course, and how would that translate in any normal language?" The Master asked.

"That's Ariel, the spirit of the air." Lucy muttered. "Oh, I must have seen him a thousand times when crossing the little corridor between my bedroom and the nursery. He's one of the characters in the Tempest, in which he aids the great sorcerer Prospero to revenge his banishment by his brother. My father used to tell me that story when I was a little girl." She stared at the spirit with eyes wide with wonder. "Incredible, you look exactly like in the painting."

"I've come to answer to my master's best pleasure milady; be't to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, or to ride on the curl'd clouds; to thy strong biddings, Ariel and all of his qualities, present himself to you."

"Well, that's quite interesting." The Master replied, amused.

"It's a recipe for disaster! Don't you have anything better to do than to offer your service to a evil megalomaniac?" River lectured the spirit.

"Why don't you start with removing this obnoxious Earth woman? Just pick her up and drop her into a volcano somewhere. There bound to be one active on one of these little islands." The Master smirked, earning him a disapproving look from Lucy.

"What?" He grunted and was rolling his eyes when thunder cracked the sky, followed by a bolt of lightening that split the distant horizon.

On the other end of the beach, the Doctor jumped up from his lonely spot and was running back to them with his hands waving in the air.

"No!" The Master told him. "Whatever you're going to say to me, I want to keep this sparkly little fellow. I have never had a companion who was so keen on serving me before, well not without conducting a little mind alteration anyway."

"He's not a stray dog you can pick up from the street." River said in an indignant voice.

"Well, the Doctor gets to keep you, you crazy malicious bitch. There should be a compromise here."

"Where is it?" The Doctor asked anxiously, and started checking the Master's pockets.

"What? What the hell are you looking for?"

The sonic, it's picking up a second signal." The Doctor breathed. "It's like a beacon, leaking coordinates into the dimensions. That's what's causing the disturbances in the atmosphere right now. It's just screaming at the Grim Reaper to come and get us. Come on, where is it? What did you do, try to make another laser screwdriver behind my back?" The Doctor asked, looking accusingly at him.

"Do look like I've anything on me that's more advanced than this metal toothpick?" The Master spat, pointing out his sword. "You turned me into a bloody cat, you idiot. How was I supposed to carry anything?"

The Doctor suddenly froze. He gazed at River.

"No Doctor." River replied, but her face was betraying her guilt.

"Your sonic screwdriver. It's not broken, is it?" The Doctor said in a soft voice.

"I was only trying to protect you." River justified herself.

A hostile wind rose up. A storm was in the air, blasting sand into their faces. Another portal appeared in the middle of the sea, forcing the waves to crash on shore with increased might. The strange rectangle of wood hovered above the watery peaks, giving the seagulls great trouble to avoid to be blown into it. The door slowly opened, and Death passed through.

"She's led him right to us!" The Master spat. "That evil serpent! I knew she couldn't be trusted!"

Lucy stepped back in horror as she watched Death gliding over the water, the waves splashing the tail of his long robe.

"Lucy, get out of here!" The Master shouted, and pushed her towards the higher regions of the island.

"No Master!" The Doctor warned. "Listen, he's after you! Get out of his way, now!" He was about to make a mad dash to get to him when River held the Doctor back with her sonic screwdriver aimed at his chest.

"Stand back!" She shouted. "The Judoons have upgraded my sonic, just in case this might happen. If you take another step further, I will shoot."

"River, have you gone completely mad? The Doctor asked, perplexed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you intervene." River explained, her voice trembling. "Too much is at stake here. You'll have to let the Grim Reaper take him!"

With the solemn grace of an experienced undertaker, Death strode on shore, and with his robe still dripping with seawater, he reached the Master and raised his scythe, ready to cut down his target.

_**TBC**_

Sorry about the cliffhanger. The chapter is getting a bit too long so I'm cutting it up into two. Next chapter is coming up next week. I hope you've enjoyed it so-far. Please let me know if you did!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**1.**

In the Doctor's experience, he had not known River for such a long time as she had apparently known him. However, he knew she cared for him, and although she was at the very moment, threatening him with a weapon aimed at both his hearts, he knew that she would never be able to pull the trigger. So instead of letting Death come to collect the Master, he sprung forward and grabbed her hand that held the up-graded sonic, wheeled around and fired it at the Grim Reaper. The laser collided with the blade of Death's scythe and the impact sent the deadly tool slightly off course, granting the Master just enough time to dive away from it's cut-throat path. So far so good. What wasn't so good was that Death then swung back his scythe, and hit the beam like a professional golfer, sending it straight back to the Doctor. He just had a fraction of a second left to push River out of harm's way before he was zapped in the chest and fell to the ground.

"Doctor!" The Master shot a menacing look at River. "Look at what you've done, you crazy bitch!"

Horrified, River ran towards the injured Timelord. He was gasping and completely paralyzed by the pain. "The Master." The Doctor groaned. "Please. Please help him." He tried to get up but was too weak to move.

River looked at him with a guilt-ridden face, but did nothing.

Meanwhile, Death calmly strode forward, following the Master's footsteps as he made a mad dash over the beach. He may not be able to shake him off, but at least he was leading him away from the others.

THERE IS NO USE TIMELORD. YOU CANNOT OUTRUN DEATH.

The Grim Reaper kept moving over the sand, using his scythe like an old man would use his staff, but he was cutting down the distance between them at nightmarish speed. The way Death's voice entered the Master's mind, tunneling inside like a worm in the cold damp earth, made both his hearts tremble with fear. Although the Master saw himself as a man cursed with immortality, his dread that one day he might run out of it had yet to disappear. The truth was that he still feared death, and this became even more painfully clear when he made the wrong turn and found himself cornered on a thin strip of land that ended abruptly into the swelling waves of the sea.

"Why are you chasing me?" He yelled as he was forced to face his greatest nightmare turned to flesh. "What have I ever done to you?"

YOU HAVE CREATED ME.

"I didn't create you." He spat. "I'm sure that if I've ever created such an abomination I would have clearly remembered."

YOU HAVE CHANGED THE FUTURE. IT IS STILL BEING CHANGED BY YOUR EXISTENCE AT THIS VERY MOMENT. IT HAS TORN GREAT WOUNDS INTO THE FABRIC OF TIME AND SPACE. I AM HERE TO HEAL THEM.

"So what kind of creature are you, a Morterian? A Timereaper?"

THE TIMEREAPERS HAVE CREATED ME FROM THE TEARS, BLOOD AND ASHES OF THAT DOOMED FUTURE WORLD THAT YOU HAVE CREATED. IN THEIR WISDOM THEY HAVE BURDENED ME WITH YOUR NAME. I WAS BROUGHT TO EXISTENCE FOR ONLY ONE PURPOSE.

"You're here to remove me from time to prevent further damage." The Master muttered, finally realizing what this was all about. "Is that all you are?" He scoffed. "Just plain ordinary Damage Control? Am I supposed to be intimidated by you?"

WHY ARE YOU SO RELUCTANT TO GO, TIMELORD. HAVE YOU NOT BEEN GRANTED AN EXCEPTIONALLY LONG LIFE? HAVE YOU NOT BEEN GIVEN MORE TIME THAN ANYONE ELSE?

"Oh, even far more than I actually deserve." A mad smile crossed the Master's face. "I've been burned, executed, and shot, I've died so often, have stared death in the eyes so many times that it has become a bad habit, but from all those horrible things that have ever happened to me, I've at least learned one thing."

AND THAT IS?

"I always survive." He grinned from ear to ear. "Ariel!" He called out. "Spirit of the air! Now would be a very good time to show your use to your master!"

The helpful spirit appeared before him in semi-translucent form. "I am at your command great sir!" He answered, riding on the waves that broke down on the coastal rocks.

"Drown him!" He ordered, although he was not even sure if this Frankenstein version of a Deathreaper could actually be drowned.

Ariel took to the sky. "I shall do your biddings, great Master. By the most mighty Neptune's forces, the bold waves shall strike him and make his old bones rattle!" He dived into the sea. Where his body hit the water a huge wave was formed that charged onto the thin strip of coast with a thunderous roar. It struck down the Grim Reaper with such a force that it could have split the stone cliffs in half. The undertow pulled the Master beneath the waves and soon he found himself swept up by toiling currents. Coming short of air and his sense of direction lost, the Master's chances were slim, but then a cold hand grabbed him by his waist and hoisted him quickly to the surface. He eagerly gulped mouthfuls of salt seawater with sweet breaths of air.

"Swim safely to shore my great master. I shall keep your nemesis underwater till the waves have broken the very last of his bones." Ariel told him before he disappeared again under the bold waves.

The Master swam back to the island and struggled on shore. There he found Lucy and that hateful River Song tending to the Doctor. His Timelord companion could hardly stand on his feet by his own and needed both humans for support.

"Get away from him!" The Master yelled, pointing at River. "Have you not done enough?" He sneered.

"I was only trying to save him." She said, but she could not hold his accusing stare.

"Please. Don't argue. Not here." The Doctor groaned, still feeling the effects of the blow. "We need to get out of here before Death returns. Master, take my sonic screwdriver. Use it to track down another portal. Get us away from the beach. Quickly."

The Master took the sonic from the Doctor and switched it back on. Almost immediately it received a new signal that pointed towards the forest-covered inlands.

"Let's get moving." The Master told the others. He carefully folded the Doctor's arm over his shoulder and half-carried him up a dried up mudflow.

**2.**

The onslaught of waves continued, pushing Death under each time he made an effort to resurface. The sharp rocks on the bottom of the shallow sea shredded his cloak, and the relentless pounding by the immense volumes of water ground his bones over the seabed. If he had been human he would have perished, but since this was Death himself, all the efforts the diligent airspirit was making on his master's behalf was only biding him time. When Ariel finally grew tired, and his powers weakened to a state that he could no longer hold his opponent under, Death simply used his scythe to split the sea in two. Slowly he emerged, rising triumphant from the sea floor.

"What creature are you?" Ariel asked, daunted his powers. "How could you take such merciless assaults and emerge from your bad fortune, visible unharmed?"

I AM DEATH.

"Death?" Ariel backed away in terror. "You mean Hades? Thanatos? The Angel of death?" He made a frightened spin in the air. "Oh great lord! Forgive me! I did not know!"

SILENCE, I HAVE NO TIME FOR YOUR FOLLIES. WHERE IS YOUR MASTER?

"That I cannot tell you my grand lord, even if you would send me down to face the sulfurous breath of the pits of hell itself. I am bound by my purpose, which is to serve my lord and let no harm come to him."

THEN LET ME GIVE YOU A NEW PURPOSE.

Death raised and clenched his skeletal hand, and the airspirit jerked and convulsed like a string puppet mangled by an angry puppeteer.

SERVE ME AS YOUR LORD AND MASTER. The Grim Reaper told him. LET ME BE…YOUR PROSPERO.

For Ariel, there was no choice left but to obey.

**3.**

It didn't take them long to find the next portal. Although there was perhaps a hundred to one chance that the doorway would indeed lead them back to their own world, facing the grim alternative, the Master just decided to go through it. As they went passed, they found a lush valley on the other side, where the trees wore their green summer crowns. The surrounding fields were gold and adorned with the vibrant heads of poppies, primroses and tall spears of foxgloves. A crystal stream ran between a bedding of cobblestones. Gently, the Master lowered the Doctor on a patch of cleared ground beneath a willow tree, resting his back against the trunk, before he went back to check on the portal. It wasn't until it had fully disappeared that he dared to breathe with ease.

"Is he going to be all right?" Lucy asked River, noticing that the Doctor had shut his eyes and appeared to be unconscious.

"He has to be. You have to believe me. That laser wasn't made to hurt anyone. I was only trying to frighten him." A sad smile appeared on River's lips. "I should have known him better really."

"Why did you do this?" Lucy gazed at the Doctor's future companion. "I thought you were the Doctor's friend?"

"I am! I am his friend, and I love him more than he will probably ever know." River said, her eyes rimming with tears of remorse. "That's why I did this. I did it for him." A tear spilled down her cheek and dripped onto the Doctor's face. "He's the most wonderful man you'll ever meet." She told Lucy with a bitter smile. "The wisest and the kindest. But he won't forgive me."

"I am sure that when he sees how remorseful you are, he would forgive you." Lucy said, trying to comfort her.

River shook her head. "No, not for what I am about to do." She brought out the second bottle that Drazek had given her, the one with the green liquid inside. The Freedonians had a specific name for this potion. It was called "zadina", and was hard to translate into any human language, because it stood for something that could only be described by two separate English words. It meant "to be forgotten" as much as it meant "to be forgiven".

"What is that?" Lucy asked warily.

River did not answer her, but removed the stopper from the bottle and placed the rim on his lips. The dose should be strong enough to wipe out the memories of the last 20 years of the Doctor's long life, removing all traces of his recently restored friendship with the Master with it. Next time the Doctor wakes up, he will only remember the Master as his centuries-old enemy, and he will no longer see the need to protect him once the Grim Reaper reappears to collect what is long since due.

At least, that was the plan.

It was River's last option.

But before she could pour the liquid into the Doctor's mouth, she was flung with her back against the tree-trunk while a firm grip tightened around her throat. She struggled against the Master, who stared back at her with a murderous look in his eyes.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE DOCTOR?" He hissed. Then he noticed the bottle of green liquid in her trembling hand.

"What is this? POISON?" He spat.

River gasped while she kept struggling for air.

"Please, let go of her. Can't you see? She can't breathe!" Lucy begged.

"This bitch is trying to murder him in his sleep!" The Master replied, enraged.

"No, no. It's not…" River wheezed. Her lungs started to burn.

"How do you know it's poison?" Lucy tried. "She didn't say it was poison. Maybe it's harmless."

"For grief's sake could you just stop being so incredibly naive all the time?" The Master snapped back at Lucy. "She had him at the other end of a laser weapon, does that still not make her intentions clear to you?"

"She said she was sorry!" Lucy shouted, watching with growing panic how the color drained from River's face. "Stop it! She's choking to death!"

The Master seized the bottle from River's weakened grip. "If it's really that harmless, why don't you swallow it all?" He told her with a vindictive sneer, and forced the bottle on her lips. Knowing what this dosage would do to a human, she fought against it with the very last of her strength, shaking her head violently to prevent the Master from forcing the liquid down her throat.

"I said stop it! Stop it you crazy maniac!" Close to being hysteric, Lucy grabbed hold of a heavy rock lying nearby and brought it down on the Master's shoulder. The Timelord cried out in pain, and acting on reflex, he wheeled around and struck Lucy hard in the face, propelling the frail girl backwards till she fell into the muddy bank of the nearby stream.

"Lucy." Realizing what he had done, he finally let go of River Song and went over to his future wife. Lucy struggled back up and scrambled away from him while shielding her bruised face. The lingering look in her eyes was one of hurt and utter horror.

"Lucy!" The Master shouted, watching her vanish into the reeds. "Lucy! I'm sorry! Come back! You're not safe on your own!" He wanted to run after her, but hesitated when he realized that he was leaving the Doctor behind with River Song. Frustrated, he came back.

"Your sonic, hand it over to me!" He barked.

Reluctantly, River gave him the device. The Master pulled her up by her bouncy golden curls and forced her to walk in front of him. "I'm not leaving you alone with the Doctor. You're coming with me!" He told her, sticking the sonic in her back.

"You can't threaten me. The laser on that thing is not even strong enough to cook an egg. The Grim Reaper's scythe must have amplified the signal, but you can't hurt me with that little twinkle light!" River replied defiantly.

The Master twisted the metal ring at the tip to adjust the lens, and yanked a seemingly random handful of wiring out of the aluminum core. He then fired a laser beam that went straight pass River Song and hit a big fat farm duck that was peddling in the stream. The bird exploded in a cloud of feathers and bits of messy poultry.

River's mouth dropped open in shock.

"Your little twinkle light just got upgraded."

"I- can't believe this! You…you just shot Donald!" She rambled.

"I'll let you in on a little secret." The Master leaned in so close to her that she felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise.

"I didn't really want to hit that stupid bird. If it wasn't for the Doctor, I swear I would have killed you by now. In fact, I would have torn you limb from limb." He added with a mad malicious smile. "And if anything happens to the Doctor or Lucy..." He didn't finish his sentence, but the murderous look in his eyes told her more than enough.

"Now, I said MOVE!"

**4.**

Lucy didn't know where she was going, as long as she was getting as far away as possible from the man she knew as Harold Saxon, she didn't care. Ever since she had been dragged down into this nightmare, all the warning signs had been constantly flashing. She had just refused to see them. Now she knew that River Song was right, the man she had regarded as her savior, was a monster. The fresh bruises on her skin and the tang of copper in her mouth confirmed it. She felt guilty that she had left River on her own with that violent madman, but she was too frightened to go back. So she kept pushing through the riverbank, her long red dress soaking up murky river water, the delicate fabric torn by the sturdy stalks, while her boots sank deeper and deeper into the muddy underground.

When she heard him call his name over the valley, she sank through her knees and hid in the lower growth. Her heart was leaping like a little rabbit as she held her breath and waited for him to pass by. She listened carefully, but the only sound that could be heard was the slow trickling of water and the lonely call of a heron, hunting between the reeds for frogs.

It was because of this unusual silence that she could hear a second voice, calling out to her. It had a broken quality to it, and it sang her name with a childlike sing-song tune.

"Kate?" Recognizing her best friend's voice, she moved away from the shore and deeper into the river. "Kate? Is that you?"

In the middle of the stream where the water reached as far as the waistline, stood a frail figure dressed in a mud stained white dress. She cradled a bundle of wild flowers in her arms, cherishing as if it was an infant, while out of her wild mane of auburn hair, stuck a chaotic bush of flowers, twigs and leaves. One look at Katherine's appearance, and it became clear to Lucy what was going on. They had wandered into the drowning scene of Ophelia, whose father was murdered by the very prince she loved, and was driven mad by the cruel hand that fate had dealt her.

"Kate!" Lucy waded through the water to get to her. The pebble floor of the river was slippery, covered by a thick layer of sediment and algae, and she was at great risk of being swept downstream by the forceful current.

"Kate, it's me, Lucy. Look at me, please." She begged, fearing that her friend would act out the entire scene and actually drown herself. "Give me your hand." She reached out to her.

Kate just gazed at her outstretched hand with a vacant look in her eyes, and slowly, she shook her head.

"Please! Let me help you. I know how impossible and ludicrous this sounds but we're inside one of my father's paintings. Whatever you may think, you are not Ophelia! There is no reason to kill yourself. Give me your hand. Let me bring you back to dry land."

Kate dropped the bundle of flowers in the water, and silently submerged herself in the river.

Shouting her name, Lucy splashed towards her in a desperate attempt to save her life, but as she reached the spot where Kate had disappeared, a cold hand snatched her leg and pulled her under. A string of bubbles rose up from her mouth and nostrils as the water closed above her head. She struggled against her invisible captor, and sprawled her limbs to push herself back to the surface, but instead of coming any closer to the bright, silvery disk, she was dragged deeper and deeper down into the darkness below. Feeling the last of the air escape her lungs, her struggling grew weaker, till eventually the shimmering light that came from the surface dimmed before her eyes.

**5.**

"Lucy!" The Master pushed through the reeds, dragging River song behind him to the place in the middle of the river where he had heard Lucy's voice. Where she just had been was now an almost placid mirror of water that was only broken by a few bubbles rising to the surface.

"Lucy! Where are you!" He spun around, looking between the thick growth at the side of the stream. "Lucy!"

"She is not here you maniac!" River told him, frightened by his frantic behavior.

"She was here! I know what I heard!" He took his rapier from his belt and swept through the reed. "Lucy!"

"Careful with that! If she is hiding in there you're bound to decapitate her."

"Shut up or I'll cut out your evil tongue and let you chew on it!"

"I wonder what they both see in you. The Doctor told me you've changed, but I just can't see it. The Judoon records described you as a dangerous murdering psychopath, so I wouldn't know where the improvement are." River said, regaining her defiance after the initial fright.

"Oh that's rich! Coming from someone who tried to poison her lover." He sneered back.

"That wasn't poison! I would never hurt the Doctor."

"If it wasn't poison, then what was it? What were you trying to force-feed down his throat?" A thought hit him, he stopped searching and took out the small bottle, gazing at her in suspicion. River, realizing that she had said too much, glanced back at him nervously.

He removed the stopper and sniffed the content.

"Something musky and woody, with perhaps…a touch of cyanide." He returned her a knowing grin. "The bark of a Judas Tree. Oh you were trying to mess with his head."

River shook her head fervently.

"Oh come on, don't insult me. I do know what Judas bark is good for. I've been using it to death in the old days. You want to erase the Doctor's memory, but to what purpose exactly?"

"The Doctor should forget about you." River said sharply, realizing that that the game was up. "If I could remove the last decades of his life from his mind, he wouldn't give a damn if the Grim Reaper takes you or not."

"You do really hate me, don't you?" he grinned dangerously. "I sensed it the moment you appeared by his side. You detest me." He came closer to her, looking her straight in the eyes, his expression turned dark. "You are afraid of me. Now why is that?"

"That's a rather silly question." She replied bravely, trying hard to keep her promise to the Doctor and not tell him anything about the prophecies. "Now why would anyone sane be afraid of you?"

Luckily for her, the surface of the stream parted in big splashing waves as Ariel emerged and took to the air. He nervously circled around the two of them a number of times before he presented himself to the Master with a courteous bow.

"My brave master, hail to you. I fear that I am the bearer of bad news."

"Ariel, good that you are here. I need to find Lucy. Help me to find her." The Master ordered.

"I can't sir. I am no longer bound to you."

"What do you mean? I thought you said you were my servant till the day I decide to release you?"

"Death severed my links to your service and bound me with shackles of his own. I am his servant now. The message I bear is from my new master. He has taken your bride to his underground realm underneath the waves."

"What has he done to her? Speak!"

"She is unharmed, but she is his prisoner. If you wish to reclaim her you must follow her into this netherworld."

"And you would lead us the way?"

"My dark lord has instructed me to guide you there." Ariel answered with visible reservation. "I must warn you good sir, he does not wish you well."

"Oh that must be one of the greatest understatement ever made in a Shakespeare play." The Master mocked. "He wants me dead you mean."

"If only it was that straightforward, milord." Ariel sadly shook his head. "You may enter his realm with me, but you are not allowed to return to the surface. If my lord's plan fail, I am meant to keep you submerged in the watery in-between."

"You cannot drown me you fairy queen. I am immortal." The Master replied in annoyance.

"You will not perish, but you'll be kept down there, forever." The airspirit warned him.

"Is that a threat?" The Master asked warily.

"It is not a warning, nor a promise good sir. It is a _fact_." Ariel answered in his great wisdom.

River glanced over at her captor, uncertain how he would now decide. The Master remained silent for a moment. Ever since he was released from the tower, his freedom had been his solace, and he had learned to cherish it after all that he had lived through with the Doctor. But this was Lucy. Her life was at stake.

He owed her so much.

"Take us to her." He finally said.

"Your wish is my command." Ariel replied. Before the Master could take in another breath, he was pulled down into the river, descending with the airspirit into the deep abyss towards Death's kingdom.

**6.**

Lucy woke underground in a white cave that resembled a cathedral, with strange rock formations that rose into the air like pillars while from high above the ceiling, translucent crystals hung like icicles. They illuminate the white rocks below, scattering the light that came from deep inside the cave, fracturing it into a hundred brilliant colors.

She rose to her feet. Still dazed from the sudden chance of environment, she moved through this strange landscape like she was wandering in a dream, placing her warm hand on the cool rock surfaces, and tracing the track of light that guided her further into these underground vaults.

She found the source of all this light when she entered an enormous bell-shaped space. The walls were lined with iron scaffolds stacked on top of each other. They went all the way up till they vanished from sight. Lucy blinked her eyes with amazement. Burning candles were placed on the narrow shelves. There were millions of them, tiny pinpoints that twinkled like the stars in the evening sky, burning in countless rows. Some of them were large, others were medium-sized, while some were burnt down to mere stump. Every instance, some of these candles extinguished with a little hiss and a dark fume of smoke, others lit up brightly in a radiant flame before burning up, creating a scene of constant change in which the small lights seemed to dance and leap from candle to candle.

Lucy's heart stood still when she spotted the morbid figure standing in the center of this sea of light. Death had been waiting for her.

COME FURTHER HUMAN CHILD. YOUR DESTINY AWAITS.

"Did you drag me down here?" Lucy asked, finally coming out of her dream-like state. "Where is Kate? What did you do to her?"

I DID NOTHING. THESE PICTURES HAVE A WAY OF ABSORBING THE HUMAN SPIRIT. SHE BECAME ONE WITH THE PAINTING.

"You…_murdered_ her?"

I DO NOT MURDER. I AM BUT A COLLECTOR OF SOULS. I CANNOT TAKE A LIFE ON MY OWN.

"Poor Kate." Lucy whispered, fighting her tears. "This is all my fault."

YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HER LIFE.

"How can you say that? If it wasn't for me, she wouldn't have been dragged in here. She wouldn't have drowned herself! How could I not feel responsible?"

LIFE IS CONSTANTLY SHAPED BY THE LIVING. YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR OWN DESTINY. YOUR LIGHT CAN ONLY BE EXTINGUISHED BY YOUR OWN HANDS.

Lucy took in a long ragged breath. "What is this place?"

LOOK AROUND YOU. THESE ARE THE LIGHTS OF THE LIVING. THE LARGE ONES BELONG TO THOSE WHO ARE YOUNG AND VITAL, THE SMALLER ONES TO HUMANS IN THEIR PRIME, AND THE SMALLEST ONES BELONG TO THE OLD. BUT EVEN CHILDREN AND THE YOUNG MAY ONLY HAVE TINY CANDLES WHEN NO MORE TIME IS GRANTED TO THEM.

"I know this." Lucy muttered. "There is a small painting in my mother's sewing room. It's called Godfather death. It was a gift from my granny. I remember sitting on her lap as a little girl while she told me that story. The young physician who fell in love with the princess and refused to obey his godfather's wishes to let her die." An anxious, most fragile smile crossed her lips. "I used to cheer for him, hoping that he would be able to outsmart Death. He never did of course." She stared back at the dark hooded figure. The fast-paced rhythm of her heart was slowly calming down. Now that she was finally facing him, a strange sense of acceptance had come over her. "I suppose, I should ask you now what the physician asked his godfather."

Death nodded knowingly, but let her continue.

"Please, show me my candle." Lucy said in a soft voice.

Death pointed out a little end of a candle that was struggling to stay alight.

Lucy shut her eyes. A single tear glided down her cheek. "Tell me, why is so short?"

YOU KNOW THE ANSWER.

"What? Because I became Lucy Saxon? Is that why I only have such a short time left?" Her voice carried a hint of resentment. This wasn't fair. She had never hurt a soul in her entire life. When she imagined her future, she saw herself finding love and happiness. She saw a long-lasting marriage with a caring husband. She saw family picnics on the lawn in the summer and warm, cozy nights with her loved-ones huddled together around the fireplace in the winter, but not this. Not _death_.

_What have I done to deserve this?_ She thought bitterly. _All I wanted in life was a little happiness, a family of my own, is that so much to ask?_

"What's going to happen? Show me! If you're really such a big magician, messing around with people's lives and dragging them in and out of make-belief worlds, than surely you would know my future?"

Death bowed his head, and with a solemn sweep of his scythe, he cut a small wound in the fabric of time and space to let the future come to her.

**7.**

The airspirit burst to the surface of the underground river, carrying the Master with him on his back. He gently lay down his lord on the lime-rock shore where he could slowly awake from his dreamless sleep.

"Remember good sir." Ariel whispered into his ears, before he went back to the world above. "You are not to return to the water or you will be bound to it, cursed to followed the course of the river for eternity."

Just a moment later, the Master awoke with Lucy's name on his lips. Dazed by the transition, he gazed around, searching for Ariel and River Song. Both were absent. Realizing that he was left on his own, and worried about what that vicious Earth woman might do to the Doctor while he was away, he checked his pockets and was relieved to find that he was still carrying River's sonic and the bottle with the green potion with him. At least she wouldn't be able to poison the Doctor's mind.

But perhaps, he contemplated, he could actually put the potion to a better use?

He recalled how Lucy had seen him acting out on River Song. That look of utter horror and disgust in her young innocent eyes haunted him. He had not wanted her to see him like this, and he wished he could undo it. He also began to realize that his own existence might be altered now that she had experienced the real Harold Saxon. Her fear might even cause him to disappear from the time-stream, and his last few years with the Doctor would be erased from history. Not without dread, he finally began to realize that he himself was actually in great danger.

With his instincts keen on survival, he poured out the liquid, leaving only a single drop behind on the bottom of the glass. He then refilled the phial with the water from the subterranean stream, diluting the potent potion till it was about the right dose for a human. After capping it with the stopper and putting it away, he hastened to venture into the underground dwelling, following the faint trail of Lucy's scent.

**8.**

Within an instance, Lucy saw and came to know everything. Her future life with the infamous Harold Saxon flew by in little but seconds, every minute of devoted love, every heartbreak and paralyzing terror that she would experience as his most unfortunate wife, every murder in which she had aided him on his behalf, she went through it as if she had already lived and died by his hands.

It broke her heart.

WHY ARE YOU WEEPING?

"Because it isn't right." Lucy whispered, her faced streaked with tears. "When I first met him, I've never thought it would be like this…You are a heartless creature to show me this, knowing that nothing can be changed."

BUT IT CAN BE CHANGED. IF YOU WISH IT SO.

"You mean…you could light another candle for me?"

I TOLD YOU, LIFE IS SHAPED BY THE LIVING. MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION, AND YOUR LIGHT SHALL NOT EXTINGUISH, HUMAN CHILD.

"But…how?" She asked weakly. "I don't want to die. Tell me, what should I do?"

JUST…MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE. Death told her, and raised his head to meet the Timelord who was about to enter the hall of light.

"Mr. bones!" The Master grabbed the sonic and aimed it at the Grim Reaper. "I was looking for you. Now, pay attention, because I am only going to ask you nicely this once. Let her go."

TOO LATE TIMELORD. TOO LATE.

The Master noticed how upset Lucy was. "What have you done to her?"

I DID NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT _YOU_ HAVE DONE TO HER.

"He showed me my future." Lucy answered, her voice frail. "I saw everything. The death of the universe, the winged castle in the air where you were king. Those awful crimes and horrible murders." She bit on her lower lip while her salted tears dripped down her chin and splashed on her crimson dress. "I helped you. I stood by your side and watched while the earth burnt. You made me fall in love with a monster. How could you be so cruel?"

The Master slowly lowered the sonic. There were a thousand words that he wanted to speak, a thousand ways to justify his deeds and plead for forgiveness and express his greatest remorse, but none of it could pass his lips. "I am sorry." He finally said, staring at the broken girl.

"I really loved you." Lucy whispered. "I did. Once."

PERHAPS YOU NOW WISH YOU NEVER HAD.

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked.

THIS FALLEN TIMELORD DID NOT COME HERE WITHOUT A PLAN. A GLASS PHIAL IS IN HIS POSSESSION WITH INSIDE A MOST POTENT POTION THAT CAN ROB A MAN'S MIND FROM HIS MEMORIES. THE POTION IS INTENDED FOR YOU.

"Is that true?" Lucy asked the Master.

"Lucy, what you know is going to destroy your soul." The Master tried to explain. "All those awful things that I've shown you, it's going to haunt you day and night." He took out the bottle. "Take the potion." He offered it to her. "Take it! When you wake up again, all of this will just be a bad dream."

"You want me forget that this has ever happened?"

FALLEN TIMELORD, YOU'VE MADE ME BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE TRULY REMORSEFUL FOR YOUR DEEDS. WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL HER?

"I'm not killing her, I'm trying to save her!" The Master answered stubbornly. "You've poisoned her mind with that horrific knowledge of the future. She will be much better off when she forgets."

OH BUT YOU ARE KILLING HER. DON'T YOU SEE WHAT YOU ARE DOING? DON'T YOU REALIZE WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN SHE KEEPS THIS MEMORY WITH HER, OR ARE YOU TOO BLINDED BY YOUR OWN SELFISHNESS AND FEAR TO SEE?

A light entered his mind, a bright flash that shielded his eyes from everything around him, and brought him to a time not far away in the future. He was in a big bookstore in Oxford Street where a popular author was busy signing his work for a long line of queuing fans. Moving closer, he recognized himself sitting behind the desk. Harold Saxon, the successful businessman turned up-coming politician, was exposing the general public to his infections 100 megawatt smile that never quite reached the eyes.

"And for whom is this for?" Saxon asked, holding his pen ready.

"Joanna, my friends call me Joan." The giggly brunette answered, pouting her lips into a nervous smile.

"To sweet pouty Joan." He scribbled the message down on the first page while he held the young girl's eyes with a charming if not somewhat predatory grin. "With love, Harry. Here you go my sweet." He handed it back to her. "You know, a pretty girl like you really shouldn't be reading this filth."

The girl blushed from head to toes. "I have to say, I find your description of your affairs with a certain previous secretary of state quite…thrilling."

"If you like what you read, maybe you would also like to be filled in on the details." He told her with a sly smile.

The girl left the line, blushing even more than before.

"Next, please." Saxon grinned. A copy of his book was thrown carelessly on the table right in front of his nose. He arched his eyebrows and gazed up, and looked right into the eyes of Lucy Cole.

"Is there a problem miss…?"

Lucy looked nothing like the Master could remember her. Her beautiful eyes were red-rimmed and her long hair had streaks of grey and was kept in an untidy braid. She looked frail and ill.

"You wrote this, word for word?" She asked.

Harold Saxon smirked and leaned back in his chair. "Of course I did. I am the author. Maybe you forgot that you are presently at the promotion of my book?"

"I don't believe anything you wrote." She said, shaking her head. "It's all lies." Saxon moved away when she suddenly flung herself over the table and swept the pile of copies to the floor. She grabbed his book and started tearing out the pages. "Don't listen to him!" She shouted, scaring off the spectators with her mad behavior. "He is not who you think he is. His name is not even Harold Saxon!"

"Security!" Saxon shouted. "Remove her NOW!"

Two strong men with plug-in earphones and wearing very dark sunglasses appeared out of nowhere to restrain her.

"Listen to me!" She tried, still desperate to be heard. "He is not even human! He's deceiving you! He's deceiving us all!"

"Get this woman out of here!" Saxon ordered.

Lucy spat in his face. "Liar! Liar!" She gazed at him, her eyes glistening with tears. "You lied to me. You said you loved me." She whispered in a broken little voice.

"Now why would I ever do that, you crazy bitch?" Saxon told her coldly, wiping the spit from his cheek with much resentment. Luckily for her he was keen on keeping up a respectful appearance. "Throw her out. She's a menace to the public order."

The Master followed her while the men dragged her outside. "Liar!" She kept shouting over her shoulders. "Harold Saxon, you are a liar!"

"That's exactly why we need someone like me in Downing street." He overheard his future-self inform the crowd. "Not one of the other parties, not even the Tories know how to get rid of these of feeble minded individuals. I would say, pick them all up from the streets and institutionalize them. Keep those people under lock and key so that they can no longer be a threat to public safety."

His stomach turned when he heard the people behind him applaud. Meanwhile Saxon's men shoved Lucy through the glass doors. She tripped over the threshold and landed on the pavement where she huddled up in a bundle of misery. The very sight of her cut into the Master's hearts, and he was about to come to her aid when a man stopped on his way to the nearby bus station and checked on Lucy.

"Excuse me miss, but are you all right?" He asked with concern.

Still shaking from her ordeal, she glanced up at him. In front of her stood a handsome young man in his early thirties with a pleasant smile and kind, caring eyes. Becoming conscious of the shameful state she was in, she quickly swallowed the last of her tears and wiped them from her cheeks.

"What's your name?" He asked her.

"It's Lucy." She said softly. "Lucy Cole."

"Lucy Cole." He repeated. "My name is Jack Winston. I was on my way to work, but since you seem to be in dire need of someone who can take you home safely, would you mind to have me as your chaperon?"

For a moment, Lucy just gazed at him without response.

"You do have a home to go to. Don't you?" Jack asked with a little smile.

"Yes. Yes I do."

"Now then." He said, as he helped her up. "Let me get us ride."

"It's all right. I can go home by my own. You shouldn't bother."

"Don't be silly. Of course I should bother. It's not every day that I find a beautiful young woman lying on the street." He told her before he walked down the road and stopped an empty cab.

"What is going to happen to her?" The Master asked as he watched Jack Winston help Lucy inside the car.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HAD NOT INTERVENED WITH HER LIFE. LUCY COLE WOULD HAVE BECOME LUCY WINSTON. GIVEN THE CHANCE, TIME IS VERY CAPABLE TO MEND ITSELF.

The light flashed before his eyes again to reveal a spacious London flat. The floor was littered with colorful toys. A young mother was sitting with her little boy on the couch with a book opened on her lap. She was reading a story to him.

"Lucy?" The Master whispered. He looked amazed. "She's going to have a son?"

"The young man fell on his knees and begged godfather Death to save his life and exchange his short candle with a longer one." Lucy read in a clear voice. "Please Godfather, He asked. Let me live so I can marry the princes and become king. You have to do this for me. But Death still remembered his betrayal and wouldn't listen."

The Master gazed over the framed photos that were displayed on the small wooden cabinet behind her. Being family snapshots, he could only see smiling facing on everyone. His eyes fell on Lucy's wedding picture. He had never seen her smile like that.

"She…She looks happy."

SHE IS. SHE HAS EVERYTHING SHE WANTS. SHE WILL HAVE A LONG, HEALTHY LIFE TO SHARE WITH THOSE SHE LOVES AND LOVE HER IN RETURN.

"What about me?" He sucked in a deep breath air, for he felt numb and dead inside. "What will happen to me?"

Death waved his robe in front of his eyes, casting him into darkness.

YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN TIMELORD. Death whispered to him.

Flashes of images appeared in his mind's eye. He was on board of the Valliant, handcuffed and taken prisoner and about to be shot down by his wife, but now, it wasn't Lucy who held the gun. With unsteady hand, Joan Saxon fired and Harold Saxon fell to the ground. He died in the Doctor's arms.

YOU KNOW.

He re-entered the world on Christmas Eve in the dreary cellar of Broadfell prison, a mad spirit slowly materializing in the eye of a blue energy vortex. His mind was consumed by vengeance and rage.

"Never dying. Never dying! Never! Never!" The Master stretched out his hands to his wife Joan, who was on her knees and looked absolutely terrified.

"Oh, my sweet Joan! My ever faithful, did the widow's kiss bring me back to life?"

"Please…Don't hurt me. I didn't want to shoot you. I really didn't!" Joan shrieked.

"Oh but I know. I even ordered you to shoot me. Your brain is so deliciously light. It's like a sponge. It absorbs almost anything I pour in it." He laughed spitefully. Around him the wards started to shudder like fish on hooks.

"What's happening to them?" Joan asked.

"Oh didn't they tell you? They are _dying_, you idiot! I'm sucking every last drop of life-force out of them."

"But…they were loyal! They were working for you!"

"They should sacrifice themselves for their Master. Mark my words, they are just the first to die! The whole stupid stinking human disgrace can disappear into a deep black pit!"

Joan scrambled up and staggered back while the others around her fell down to the floor. Their bodies were still twitching in post-mortem spasm. The Master, his transformation complete, calmly stepped out of the blue vortex, and slowly, he approached her.

"Please. Don't." Joan wept, fearing what was to come. "I was faithful to you. You said so yourself."

"Ssst." The Master hushed as he placed his hands on her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. "Now my sweet pouty little Joan, you know that is not completely true." A mean glint appeared in his eyes. "I did hear you call for the Doctor." He whispered into her ear.

Before she could defend herself, he savagely twisted her head and broke her neck. Joan eyes went dark and her body fell limp against him. Heartlessly, he let her tumble to the ground.

Once again the darkness was shifting, composing the next scene out of the shadows of a possible future.

"The drums." The Master noticed. "They were quieter this time. I remember them much louder."

WITHOUT LUCY TO STOP YOU, YOUR RESURRECTION WAS FULLY COMPLETED. YOUR BODY WASN'T RIPPED APART BY THE FORCES OF ALTERATION, WHICH HAD ONCE LEFT YOU RECEPTIVE FOR THE DRUMS. IN THIS FUTURE, YOU DID NOT BRING BACK THE TIMELORDS OF OLD TO TERRORIZE EARTH, BUT YOUR GREED FOR POWER AND RELENTLESS HUNGER FOR REVENGE DID DRIVE YOU TO THE IMMORTALITY GATE...

He was back in the main hall of the Naysmith mansion on Christmas day, surrounded by his army of clones. They were changing. Their heads were spinning as they rejected his DNA blueprint from their bodies like a disease.

Once again, the Doctor had found a way to undo his evil.

"No! No! No! Stop it! Stop it!" He shouted in despair, but he could only stand there and watch how his wonderful creations were reversed and turned back into those filthy little apes.

"Master." The Doctor said as he approached him slowly. "It's over."

"No! It's only over when I say it is!" The Master replied disdainfully, shooting an anxious glance at the gate that was still switched on.

"Don't do something stupid." The Doctor warned him. The soldiers around him started to regain control over their bodies, and one of them cocked his gun and aimed it at the Master. The Master swirled around and made a mad dash for the Immortality Gate, his last chance for retribution.

"Master!" The Doctor yelled. "Don't do this!"

He wasn't listening, and leapt into the gate with a loud roar.

"Deactivate it! Turn the whole thing off NOW!" The Doctor shouted at an engineer who rushed over to the console and tried the switches. "We can't." He told the Doctor. "The core is burning up. It has turned the entire system into a one-way energy surge. The entire gate is now flooded with radiation."

The Master stood triumphant. "Now let's see what more fun can be had with this device."

"Don't shoot!" The Doctor held back the soldiers as he ran forward. "Master, get out of there. The gate is getting dangerously unstable!"

"If I can't turn everyone into me then these Earthling are useless!" The Master sneered back. "It's better to get rid of this pathetic pet race of yours once and for all!"

The Doctor stared at him in horror. "Don't do anything! Don't try anything! Whatever you have cooked up in that mad brain of yours, it's not gonna work!"

The warning lights are starting to flash, bathing the entire room in a red foreboding glow.

"Master! Listen to me! That portal is corrupted! Don't start it up! You can't control it!"

A blood-red pulse of radioactive energy cracked over the surface of the gate. The Master gazed up, his jaw tensed. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the human soldiers moving closer to him with their weapons ready and aimed to kill.

The Doctor froze, realizing the dangerous position he had put him in. "Please…Don't." He turned to the militants. "Lower your guns! All of you! Stop _threatening_ him!"

"We can't let him go sir." Replied a senior commander while keeping his target. "You've seen what he can do. He's too dangerous!"

The Master laughed madly. "Why is it Doctor, that every time we meet we must play this same tedious game, but none of us ever seems to win it?" The Master asked, his faked confident smile turning into grimace.

"Life isn't a game." The Doctor replied. He was desperate to reach him and this was his final chance. "Don't throw it away with the roll of a dice."

The Master stared back at him for moment. Although he feared the Doctor was right about the gate, the Master had no choice left. After all that had happened, he knew these humans were not going to let him live. He threw his head back and laughed bitterly.

"Oh, Doctor. I'll take that chance."

He activated the gate and the crimson energy exploded into a blinding flame. It incinerated everything in its path and shattered the glass in the windows as the heat wave pushed out of the main hall. The last thing the Master heard before left this world, was the Doctor, screaming his name when the gate was destroyed.

When the brightness finally faded, he opened his eyes. Slowly, they adjusted to the countless tiny dots of light that came from the burning candles.

He was back inside the cave.

"So this why you brought us here." He told the Grim Reaper. "You're forcing me to make a choice. Either I give the potion to Lucy, and she will forget she has ever met me. She'll die as my wife. Or I don't give her the potion, and let her keep her memories, but then…I will die."

THAT IS CORRECT.

"You bloody _coward_!" The Master hissed, anger boiling in his guts. "If you're so eager to get rid of me, why don't you just kill me yourself?"

I AM ONLY A COLLECTOR OF SOULS. I HAVE NO MY RIGHT TO TAKE A LIFE.

"So you're forcing me to take my own?" A bitter grin crossed the Master's face. "And hers? How do you think that's going to work?" He grabbed Lucy's arm and dragged her in front of the Grim Reaper. "What if I choose not to play your little game? What if all that sentimental twaddle you've shown me is not going to save her?" Determined, he took out the bottle and popped off the stopper. Lucy gazed at him with tearful eyes. He pushed the bottle onto her lips. "I could do this! Force it all down her throat till the very last drop. You wouldn't be able to stop me!"

THAT IS CORRECT. I CAN DO NOTHING.

"Because if it is a choice between her life and mine…There is no doubt in my mind which one I will pick." The Master said angrily, holding on to the bottle for dear life.

Death looked at him and Lucy, but did not act.

"You can't stop me." The Master repeated, forcing himself to be resolute, but in his hearts he knew that his resolve was crumbling.

"Please…"

He gazed at Lucy. There was no hate or resentment for his weakness in her eyes. There was only fear.

"Please…" He whispered. "Stop me…"

But Death remained silent and still.

**_TBC_**

SORRY FOR THE DELAY! The next and final chapter will be up this Tuesday, the 18th of January. Meanwhile, please review or leave a comment if you have the time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**1.**

"You can't stop me." The Master repeated, forcing himself to be resolute, but his resolve was crumbling fast. "Please…" He gazed down at Lucy. There was no hate or resentment for his weakness in her eyes. There was only fear.

"Please…" He whispered. "Stop me…"

But Death remained silent and still.

He cried out in frustration and flung the phial against the cave wall where it shattered into a million fragments. Then he let go of Lucy, who looked at him in surprise and shock.

"You…destroyed it."

"An act of madness." The Master said resentfully. "Thank Gallifrey there can't be many more." He turned to the Grim Reaper and raising his hands up in the air in surrender. "Congratulations. You've won. You've erased me from existence. Happy now?"

A strong wind suddenly swept through the cave, extinguishing the numerous rows of candles.

YOU ARE RIGHT. Death told him. MY TASK IS FULLFILLED. MY EXISTENCE IS NO LONGER NEEDED.

The Master and Lucy were forced to grab onto a limestone pillar when the entire rock bedding started to tremble beneath their feet.

"Oh no." The Master muttered when he saw that the Grim Reaper was retreating into the dark. "No! No! No! NO! That's not what we agreed on! I've made my choice! I chose her! You have to let her go!"

Death remained silent and observed calmly how millions of candles were extinguished at once when the metal shelves started to collapse around them.

"You can't leave her here!" The Master yelled. "How is she supposed to get out?"

LET IT BE TIMELORD. Death told him in a voice that was like a dying echo. LIFE IS FOR THE LIVING. YOU NO LONGER BELONG TO THEM.

He moved back into a crevice and dissolved in the fast approaching darkness.

**2.**

River had made her way back to the Doctor and was relieved to find him still fast asleep under the tree. She picked up her backpack and quickly went through it, fishing out a small locator device that could be used to send out a pick-me-up signal to the Judoons. With a little luck, she and Doctor will be out of here within an hour, leaving the other Timelord trapped inside the paintings with Mr. Bones on his heels. She wasn't sure that the Master was dead, but she had a strong suspicion that he soon will be. The Doctor of course, won't forgive her for this, but at least she knew he was saved. She was about to switch on the device when a hand grabber her by the wrist.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor asked quietly, peeking at her through one half-opened eye.

**3.**

The Master took Lucy's hand and dragged her out of the cave while behind them the heavy iron shelves keeled over and came crashing down. As they dashed through the tunnel, the destructive tremor intensified and compromised the wall structures, causing the crystals to break off from the ceiling.

"The whole cave is going to collapse! We have to get out of here!" The Master shouted.

They kept running till they reached the shores of the underground stream.

"How do we get back? I can't remember where the portal was." Lucy told him.

The Master peered over the vast body of water that had become turbulent and wild. "Ariel! Come to me! I need your help!" He called, and out of the restless waves, the air spirit appeared.

"Open the portal!" The Master commanded. "Guide us back to the surface before we are buried alive down here."

"Oh my most unfortunate lord." Ariel informed him regretfully. "I am afraid I cannot comply."

"What? Why?"

"I've warned you good sir. Once you have followed her into the deep, you may never enter the upper world again."

"But your master is gone! You don't need to keep to his insane instructions!" What was this imbecile worrying about? Can't he see that they were running out of time? He peered nervously at the waterfront that was now coming towards them, silently seeping over the rocky shores till it reached as far as their feet.

"Listen, I am your master now and I order you, bring us back to the surface!"

"I am sorry, but I am still bound to my pledge to him. The girl. I can take her back, but not you milord."

The Master turned to Lucy. The ice-cold water was now lapping at their ankles. Soon, the entire cave will be flooded.

"You came after me. Even when Ariel warned you not to." Lucy mumbled, realizing what he had done for her.

"You have to go with him." He told her determinedly.

"But if you stay behind you will drown!"

"Look does that even matter? I am dead already!" He stopped himself and breathed in deeply. "Lucy, listen to me. I am sorry. I can't bring you back, but you will be safe. Find the Doctor. He is clever. He will fix everything. I promise he will get you out."

"I can't. You…you gave up your life for me." Lucy said, her eyes tearing up. "I can't just leave you here to die."

The Master swallowed hard and forced his hearts to turn to stone. "Consider it as a debt repaid." He said grimly. He grabbed her by the arm and pushed her into the stream. Lucy gasped when the icy water hit her in the chest and swallowed her whole.

"Quickly!" The Master yelled from the flooded shore. "Take her Ariel. Bring her back to the Doctor!"

She was about to swim back to the shore when Ariel folded his arm around her waist and dragged her down, back to the upper world, back to safety.

The Master was now left on his own.

He climbed on top of a small pile of rocks. The water levels kept rising at a dangerous pace. When the water started to come above his chest and forced him to swim to stay above the waves, he heard the final whispers of Death as his shadow brushed by on its way to leave this mortal world.

"How long do I have left?" He asked him while he struggled to stay afloat.

YOU HAVE ONE DAY BEFORE THE TIMELINE IS READJUSTED. NO MORE.

"One day." He echoed, letting the grim message sink in. His hearts turned as cold as the pitiless water that surrounded him.

When he was submerged till up to his nose, and the tiny air pocket between the leaping waves and the cave ceiling began to disappear, he closed his eyes and took one last breath of air. As the waves closed above him, he didn't struggle. He didn't fight. He just let the brilliant chill shackle his spirit, and let himself drift aimlessly, rolling where the river took him, a ghost wandering over the water.

He was submerged in darkness, and here he would have stayed till his final day was over, if not a favorable current brought him within reach of the Doctor who appeared from the deep. He caught him and pulled the nearly unconscious Master towards a wooden door that stood in the midst of a swaying field of plants. He pushed his shoulder against it, and the door opened, flooding the water from the underground stream through the portal. The Doctor held on to the Master as they were flushed through the opening to the other side.

**4.**

They were channeled through the doorway onto a green lawn. Still couching up water from his lungs, the Doctor crawled over to the Master who was lying on his back on the damp grass with his eyes closed.

The Doctor dropped on his knees and placed his hands flat on his chest. "Come on now." He muttered as he started pumping his hearts, leaning in with his whole weight.

"It's just a little bit of water, breathe!"

After a few of attempts to revive him, the Master finally gasped and garbled, and rolled to his side, puffing like an old motor choking on thick oil.

"There you are! Good boy!" The Doctor slapped him on the back with a thankful smile. "Knew you wouldn't die on me."

"Where is Lucy?" The Master wheezed.

The smile vanished from the Doctor's face. "I didn't see her. River took me to the spot in the river where you two disappeared. I just dived in. I found you, but I couldn't find Lucy."

"She has to be here." The Master scrambled back on his feet. "I told Ariel to bring her safely back to you."

He gazed around. They were standing in a well-kept garden with tidy borders abloom with scented flowers. High in the sky, a lonely skylark sang his summer song.

"I am sorry Master." The Doctor told him. "The current was too strong. I was lucky to find another portal opening up. I had to drag you through or we both would have drowned."

"We went into another painting?" The Master shouted at the Doctor, horrified by the prospect of leaving his future wife behind. "What about Lucy? She can't get out of there on her own!" He was about to steal the sonic screwdriver from the Doctor to locate another portal, when the large fountain in the center of the lawn suddenly made a strange sound. It was as if something large was stuck inside the pipelines and was upholding the flow. The entire fountain began to shake violently, and the two stone lions stopped spewing water.

The two Timelords exchanged wary glances before approaching the rattling construction. They gazed over the railing into the basin. Miniature shockwaves rippled over the surface in ever expanding circles until a large jet of water burst in the sky, reaching as high as the nearby trees. Ariel appeared, draped in lily leaves and green water plants, he was carrying Lucy in his arms.

"My dear lord. Here is your bride, safely and soundly delivered to the Doctor, as you have beseeched me." The airspirit spoke as he gentle put down Lucy on the grass.

"Oh." The Master sighed in relief. "For once I am glad that you hardly use your fairy brain and take your orders so very literally."

As soon as Lucy's feet touched the ground, she ran over to him and hugged him tightly. Lost for words, he wrapped his arms around her, and on to her for a while.

When she was finally feeling a little more like herself, Lucy turned to the Doctor. "What happened to River?" She asked.

"Oh I wouldn't worry about her if I was you. She will be fine." He replied without much emotion.

The Master studied the Doctor's face. It told him that if he had something to say about River Song, this wasn't the right time.

"We on the other hand," The Doctor pressed on. "-can keep on going through portals and jumping from painting to painting till we're gray and old, but we're not going to get out if we're only relying on luck." He put his hands on his sides and checked the surroundings. "This place doesn't remind me of any of the Shakespeare plays, and I've seen most of them, if not all."

"It's not a scene from a play." Lucy told him, glancing around to make sure that she was drawing the right conclusion. "This looks exactly like our garden in summer. It even has the twin lions in the fountain and the little teahouse behind the flowerbeds."

"Maybe you accidentally picked the right portal and we're already out?" The Master opted.

"No." The Doctor muttered, fixing his eyes on something most peculiar at the far back of the garden. "I don't think I'm that lucky…not yet."

The Master and Lucy followed his gaze. There was a 2 by 3 meter square object hovering in the air in front of the evergreen shrubs. It resembled a gilded wooden frame that surrounded a large canvas. Coming up closer, they saw to their great relief that the picture showed a most familiar scene.

"That's our drawing room!" Lucy pointed out.

""It's a painting of our Christmas party! And we didn't even miss much judging by the amount of fruit-punch that is still left in the bowl." The Doctor grabbed the sonic screwdriver as he studied the wooden frame. "This barrier is just paper-thin. I think we could breach this and be back just in time before your father get to the roast turkey." He grinned and licked his lips as he whirred the sonic over the borders of the canvas. One corner was just loosened up when a red laser hit the center of the painting and punched a hole right through the dimensional shield. Stunned, the Doctor looked over his shoulder to see the Master holding River's upgraded sonic turned laser screwdriver.

"What?" The Master shrugged. "It was taking you _ages_. I don't have that much time to waste."

"That's River's sonic!" The Doctor blurted.

Before he could yell at him again, the shield that separated the tiny idealized world of a perfect English summer from that of lord Cole's drawing room cracked and shattered into pieces. The Master didn't wait but took Lucy by the hand and together, they jumped through the portal. The Doctor quickly followed.

**5.**

The select company that lord Cole had invited for the party was in a state that could be described as borderline socially acceptable drunk when the Doctor appeared with his companions at the other side. Their entrance was not even noticed by most of the guests. Distracted by the many popular Christmas songs that were continuously barking through the speakers, they could not have heard the clatter of breaking glass. Others did see the three of them suddenly appear in front of one of the more unremarkable new addition to lord Cole's collection, but after shortly considering the amount of sherry and eggnog they had consumed, they just decided that it was best not to mention it. The only one who seemed really surprised to see the mistress of the house appear in the drawing room rolled up inside a wet and dirty horse blanket, was Peeves the butler, who had ran right into her and had dropped his serving tray by accident.

"Miss Cole?" Peeves asked, looking at her in complete shock while the last remaining glasses of sherry slid off the tray. "Where-where did you come from? You weren't there just a minute ago!"

"Peeves?" Lucy couldn't believe her eyes. "Oh it's really you!" She glanced around and was quickly reassured by the familiar faces of family and friends. "We're out!" She exclaimed. "We're really out! Oh thank God!" She hugged the butler.

"Who is this gentleman?" Peeves asked, staring over her shoulder at the Master, who looked like he has just returned from the 100 years war. "I don't remember letting him in. If he's invited than I am afraid he might have misinterpreted the dress code for tonight. This is not what your father had in mind with casual."

Aware of how he must look, the Master was moving a little to the back to avoid too much embarrassing attention when he bumped with his backside against a small sign that was placed next to the garden-painting through which they had just escaped. It read:

_This contemporary artwork by Eliza Diaz was donated by the Infinity Corporation UK to the collection of Lord Cole for his most honorable contribution to the British art scene. _

"Why am I not surprised?" The Master grinned. He was just turning around to look for the Doctor when he saw him heading back to the staircase.

"Hey! Where are you going?" He asked.

"Up. It's not over yet." The Doctor replied knowingly before he disappeared upstairs.

Since Lucy was still busy calming down the butler, the Master slipped away through the crowd and followed him.

It took a while before the Doctor found the one specific painting that he was looking for. He discovered it after he had searched through most of the rooms on the second floor, hanging above the mantelpiece in lord Cole's study. It was a painting that depicted a very familiar scene from Hamlet, with poor Ophelia drifting on her back in the river between the reeds with her eyes cast upwards, staring vacantly at the branches.

"That's her." The Master told the Doctor. That's Katie, Lucy's friend. I recognize her face."

The Doctor didn't respond but let his eyes wander over the fields beyond the trees that lined the river shore. There, standing nearby a cut down tree, was River Song. She was still trapped inside.

"You're going to let her out." The Master snorted. He grinned sourly and shook his head. "I knew it. The bitch almost had you killed and still you do not the heart to leave her there to rot."

"She's not going to need any help. River has a tracker device that enables her to contact her people. They should pick her up any minute now." The Doctor told him, while he kept his eyes fixed on her. "I just want to be sure."

"And who might those people be?" The Master asked with considerable hostility.

"Not anyone you might want to run into." The Doctor told him strictly, making clear that he wasn't going to elaborate on the matter. As soon as he had said this, the little painted figure disappeared from the canvas.

"Goodbye River Song." The Doctor sighed, experiencing a strange mix of sadness and relief. "Hope to see you again. But not too soon." He added as the ominous future that she had revealed to him still preyed on his mind. "By the way." He turned to the Master, cocking an eyebrow. "If I was ever that petty-minded and vindictive like you are now, I would not have gone looking for you. You would have still been stuck inside that tower."

"Is this supposed to mean something?"

"It means that perhaps showing a little bit of mercy now and then isn't such a bad thing."

"Mercy?" The Master repeated, wearing a scornful grin on his face and acting like the concept was completely alien to him. "You want me to be compassionate? To _her_?"

"Yes." The Doctor told him sternly. "Not everything has to be retaliated. Not everything has to end in blood."

The Master wanted to say something spiteful, but had a change of heart when he saw the expression Doctor's face. Groaning inwardly, he took out the laserscrewdriver, and started to help melt down the dimensional barrier.

**6.**

It was long past midnight, and Christmas Eve has already turned into Christmas day when the two Timelords were parting from Lucy in a quiet corner of the back garden where the Doctor had left the Tardis.

"Thank you for bringing Kate back. Thank you for saving our lives." She held the Doctor tightly in her embrace and kissed him on both cheeks. "Thank you for everything really."

"You keep an eye on her." The Doctor told her. "Luckily, she can't remember much from the being trapped inside a painting and being a suicidal Danish noblewoman." The Doctor smiled. "Still, she will feel even better when there's a good friend around who keeps her from wondering about the bits she does remember."

"I will good care of her." Lucy nodded. "Thank you." She told him again, but no matter how often she expressed her gratitude, she still had the feeling that it never was going to be enough.

The Doctor waved at her and disappeared inside the Tardis, leaving her alone to say goodbye to the Master.

Before he could say anything, Lucy took him in her arms and hugged him so tightly that it was obvious that she was reluctant to see him go. A little awkward, he laid his hand on her golden locks and softly caressed her hair.

"So, you didn't tell him." She whispered, gazing at him with worried eyes.

"What's the use?" He said quietly. "It's over. Mr. Bones won't come back to haunt you again. Now you can finally live the rest of your life in peace, in the way you should have done, without Harold Saxon." He gave her a little smile, trying hard to hide his beaten spirit from her. "Lucy Cole, soon to be Lucy Winston." He sighed. "You know, I still have to get used to that ridiculous name."

Lucy returned him a morose little smile. "What about you? What is to become of you?"

"Well, I am still here, which means that Death must be wrong about us. It didn't really need to be choice between you or me."

"But he said -"

The Master put his finger on her lips. "Don't you worry about me. I'll be all right." He lied.

Lucy looked him in the eyes, searching for the truth that was too hard to bear. "Will I ever see you again?"

"Yes." He told her, his lips curled into a sad grin. "But it won't be me."

Lucy nodded, she understood. Her eyes shimmered with tears. "So…I guess, this is goodbye."

She pulled him closer and kissed him. Through her tears, their brief union tasted bittersweet. When they finally let go of each other, she felt a little part of herself die.

"Goodbye Harry." She whispered when she watched him go inside the Tardis.

"Goodbye my Timelord." Lucy said quietly, as the wind swelled up and the Tardis vanished before her.

She knew that Death was never wrong.

**7.**

The Doctor didn't want to be reminded of River Song. He didn't want to remember what kind of doom the Ood elders were prophesying for him this time around, and he certainly didn't want to know what the future held for him and the Master. What he wanted and needed right now, was a distraction, so he could run away from his problems and could pretend that they weren't there just for a tinsey little while longer. Oh there were plenty of excuses. It was Christmas day and they had somehow managed to save everyone. He was traveling with another Timelord who he had know over 900 years and whose snarky company he had slowly grown fond of in some bizarre sort of way, and after some rummaging in the kitchen he had even rediscovered a frozen turkey in the bottom of the freezer. It was a frighteningly large bird that he must had kept there since this avian species was first discovered in the 15th century, and he never had the chance to do something with it.

"You know, we should celebrate Christmas, just like anyone else." The Doctor blathered. The Master winced a little, realizing that his companion had shut down the brain department for the rest the day.

"Let's have a proper Christmas dinner." The Doctor rambled on. "One with all the trimmings, gold and silver baubles, cracking crackers, and oh! Those cheerful little paper crowns!"

Normally, the Master would have protested and balked like a stubborn mule by the very prospect of such horrors, but much to the Doctor's surprise, he was strangely demure and even helped him out with decorating the tree. After the console room was transformed with colorful twinkling lights, the Doctor took care of diner by incinerating the turkey and torturing the hell out of the vegetables. The Master didn't complain when he was served a slice of meat that had all the elasticity and the taste of a rubber boot. He didn't make any sarcastic remarks when the Doctor dropped a half-cooked potato on his plate by accident and shattered the china. He even let the Doctor murder a Christmas song or two, humored him by pulling a cracker and let the over-enthusiastic Timelord put a ridiculous paper crown on his head. Lucky for the Master, there was plenty of alcohol to soften the pain.

"Do you want another mince pie?" The Doctor asked, peering at his companion through wine-hazed eyes while resting his head on his hand. "I've got another half a dozen coming up in..." He gazed down and tried to focus on his watch. "…Oh let's say...about 10 minutes."

The Master took a sniff and noticed the awful scent of burnt pastry that came wafting out of the kitchen.

"I think you will find that they were already done half an hour ago." He answered calmly. "And no, I would rather not. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind another glass of wine." He added hastily, and refilled his glass up to the rim.

"Peaceful isn't it?" The Doctor muttered, gazing happily at the twinkling lights that were quickly fading out of focus with a moronic grin. "There is nothing better than to share a nice meal with a friend at Christmas. By the way, I want to apologize for the food. I know it's not perfect. It's just that I wanted to give it a try. I've always wanted to cook for Christmas, but for some reason none of my previous companions ever encouraged me to."

"Really? Oh I do wonder why." Deadpanned the Master.

"You've been absolutely brilliant." The Doctor grinned through his intoxication. "I promise, next year we're going out." Feeling ridiculous guilty for what River Song had told him, he suddenly felt the urge to smother him with kindness. Such are the wondrous workings of the good Doctor's brains after too much alcohol consumption. "I know this little place in 19th century Scotland that serves a really delicious roast goose. We should go there." As he said it, the Doctor's head started to slide down, coming dangerously close to his plate with brick potatoes.

"Sounds wonderful." Muttered the Master, carefully taking his plate away.

"You're my best friend in the universe, and you deserve a real feast…you deserve…so much…so much more…" The Doctor slurred, and sank his head onto his napkin with his eyes closed. Within a minute he started to snore.

The Master sighed and removed the slightly embarrassing paper crown from his head. "So this is how it's going to end." He muttered, feeling a bit disappointed. "No great revelation. No deep discussions about the meaning of life. Just you, lying drunk with your head on the table in a pool of your own drool, frolicking with the merry queen of intoxication, while I am left on my own, counting the last seconds that I still have left to live."

He stared at his unconscious companion and let out another forlorn sigh, followed by a quick glance at the Doctor's wristwatch. "Oh well, at least I don't have to see you whoring yourself out to the god of all hangovers. Although, it could have been comical of course." He crumbled the paper crown to a tight ball and tossed it under the table. Briefly, he considered waking him up, but then he recalled that he wasn't very good at saying goodbyes. Besides, he told himself, the Doctor was bound to get all over-emotional. Better to prevent all the unnecessary drama, and to remember his good companion as he was now, peacefully asleep and snoring like an over-enthusiastic space-whale during the mating season with that ridiculous little paper crown sliding over his eyes.

So the Master quietly left the dinner table. They were in space, circling in orbit around the Earth. He opened the Tardis doors to let the moonlight enter the room and took a chair to sit down to watch the starlit galaxies, while he waited for the inevitable.

Minutes turned into hours. The Master kept going back to check the Doctor's wristwatch to keep a fearful eye on the time while steadily, his stomach tightened into a nervous little ball. Death had predicted that he had only 24 hours left before the timeline would be readjusted. At least 24 hours had passed, and he still existed. Then it became midnight and the first Christmas day was officially over, but he was still there. Anxious and still skeptical, he checked his pulse and his heartbeats, and breathed extra deeply to test his lungs. He opened and clenched his hands and wriggled his toes. His body seemed to function perfectly. One hour past midnight and the reality finally became clear to him. He wasn't going to be erased after all. He had survived.

Something had happened.

Something had happened to Lucy.

The Master leaped up from his chair and headed for the console. The Doctor, waking up from his slumber, scrambled back up with his napkin still stuck to the side of his head. "Master?" He saw him rush by and tackle the Tardis controls like a madman. "Master, what are you doing?"

Without answering, the Master set the data on December the 29th of 2005 and started up the engines.

**8.**

The destination was London where they landed in the middle of busy Oxford Street in front of a large bookstore. In the shop window that was still elaborately decorated with Christmas tinsels, was a cardboard sign adverting the book-signing event that was currently taking place. The Master stepped out of the Tardis and was about to rush inside when the Doctor came after him.

"Why did you bring us here?" The Doctor noticed with alarm the life-size cutout of the Master's former self who was gleefully staring at them from behind the shop window. "Did you lose your mind? This is Harold Saxon's London!"

"I know what this is! But I need to know."

"Know what?" The Doctor studied his face. "What are you not telling me?"

"I made a deal with Death. He promised me that he would spare Lucy if I would let her remember what happened on Christmas Eve. It would change the future in such a way that I would have perished at the Naismith mansion. I was to be removed from the time stream in exchange for her life."

"What?" The Doctor stared at him with great concern and shock. "And you didn't tell me any of this?"

"Look it doesn't matter. You were drunk and unconscious and I was at peace with my fate." The Master answered him sternly. "Death told me I had 24 hours left to live before time would mend itself."

"24 hours? But you're still here." The Doctor said, trying to stay optimistic. "So…it didn't work. Death had it wrong then!"

"He wasn't wrong Doctor." The Master answered bitterly. "Don't you get it? Something must have happened to Lucy." He turned away from him, determined to find her before it was too late.

"Wait!" The Doctor followed, eager to stop him. "You can't go in there! You can't let your former self see you!" He was about to pull him away from the revolving doors when a young man in a postman uniform came over and interrupted them.

"Um, excuse me sir, but did you two just come out of that blue box over there?"

"Yes." The Doctor answered, a little perplexed. "Yes we just did."

"Why do you care?" The Master asked with suspicion.

"Well…I've got a delivery for you." The young man took out a sealed envelope out of his shoulder bag. "It's a signed letter for someone called uhm…Harry?" He looked slightly embarrassed. "That's all it says on the envelope."

"You work for the royal mail?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "And you're delivering a letter to _us_?"

"Yeah. I know it's strange. This letter has become something of legend." He handed it over to the Master. "I was told that it was delivered at the post office a year ago, with the strict orders to give it to two blokes who would emerge from a blue wooden box in front of the Barnes and Nobles in Oxford street on December the 29th, 2005, at around 3 in the afternoon." He slimed nervously at the two Timelords. "The lads at the office thought I was thick for trying to actually deliver it. There had even been a bet going on with a couple of quid in the pot. Even I thought you wouldn't show up. I guess I am the one who gets to point and laugh now." He took out a clipboard and a pen. "Please sign here." He pointed at an empty box at the bottom of the receipt form. "Would you mind if I take a photo from the box? Just to make sure that the others will believe me?"

Before the Master could tell him to sod off, he grabbed his mobile and took a couple of snaps.

"Thanks!" The young postman said as he tucked his mobile away. "And Merry Christmas to you both!"

The Doctor waited till he had disappeared around the corner. "Who sent you this?" He asked the Master.

"It's from Lucy." He answered quietly, and carefully, he took the letter out of the envelope.

_My dear Harry_

_I hope this letter has reached you in time. It has taken me long to think up a way to deliver it to you. However, I figured that if you want to stop me from saving your life, it would be at the most critical moment, which is on the day when we first met. I knew that you were lying to me when we said our goodbyes. I have to confess that at first, I was grateful for that lie. For a moment, I had believed that I could step into my shiny new future. I could become Lucy Winston, the content wife of a loving husband and the mother of a sweet child and find happiness in that. I could have lived the rest of my life without ever really come to know you, but then we kissed, and because of that kiss, everything changed._

**9.**

It was in the early hours of Christmas morning when a car pulled up in front of Cole Manor. Lucy was awake, unable to catch sleep, she had been staring at the empty spot on the lawn from her bedroom window when her train of thoughts was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. Although she knew it was only a very slim chance, she was still hopeful that it might be the Master and the Doctor, and she ran down the staircase to answer it before it could wake up Peeves or her father. Outside in the frosty cold stood a man in his mid thirties who smiled politely at her with a cigarette between his lips. Behind him, a cab was still running with white smoke drifting up from the bonnet.

"Hello there miss, and a merry morning to you!" Drazek greeted cheerfully.

"This has to be a mistake, I am pretty sure that no-one at this address has called for a cab." Lucy told him, hiding her disappointment.

"Oh but I am not here to offer transportation miss." He grinned so wide that she could count his nicotine stained teeth. "I am here for a special delivery."

He took out something from his pocket and held it out to her. Lucy's breath stalled. She couldn't believe her eyes.

"Take it miss." He whispered, offering her the small phial with the crystal clear green liquid. "It's all paid for by my sponsors."

"Your sponsors?"

"I've got a couple of them." Drazek shrugged. "Some are more charitable than others. I must say that my current subsidizers have been very generous to me." He studied her and gave her a sly smile. "From that look of recognition on your pretty little face I take you know what this is and how to use it. So I'll leave you to it. It's your choice, obviously." He waved while he headed back to his cab. "A Merry Christmas to you!"

"Merry Christmas." She muttered, she held the bottle against her breasts and shut the door behind her. It was not until the cabby had driven off and she had returned to her room that she noticed the little card. It was attached with a neat red bow around the neck of the phial. It had a little robin on the cover, carrying a branch of mistletoe. When she flipped the card, she found a message written in elegant handwriting on the back. It read:

_With compliments of the season, Infinity Corp. UK._

**10.**

_The moment you kissed me, I remembered how it felt to be in love with you again before the drums entered our lives and plunged us into madness. It is like basking in the sun; it is warm, and radiant and absolutely wonderful. When I first met you and looked into your eyes, I entered an endless summer._

Inside the bookstore, Lucy Saxon was finally at the head of the queue.

"I loved your book."

"Of course you did." Muttered Harold Saxon as he took the copy from her without looking up and sloppily scribbled his signature over the first page. He was getting bored with these worshiping morons, and his impatience was starting to wear down his thin veneer of graciousness. "Otherwise you wouldn't be standing in line _for hours_, just to get my autograph." He added with a mildly sarcastic tune and returned the signed book to her with a big faked smile plastered on his face when he finally met her eyes.

There she stood, every bit as beautiful as the future Master would remember her. Her eyes were shining with nothing but adoration for him. Her cheeks had the complexion of blood red crabapples in the winter snow, while her demeanor was adorably shy. It was simply impossible for Harold Saxon not to be captivated by her innocence and beauty.

"Forgive me, I forgot to ask for who it was for." He corrected himself, suddenly remembering his manners. He flipped the book back open again. "What is your name?"

"Lucy. Lucy Cole." She told him with a timid little smile.

"Lucy, Lovely Lucy in the sky of diamonds, and in her radiance, she outshines every star. Now tell me, you said you loved my book?" He said as he handed her copy back to her with a playful wink and a charming smile. He just adored to be admired, especially by beautiful women.

"Oh yes. I loved every part of it. Although…I thought the title could do a little better."

Saxon arched a brow in amused surprise. "What's wrong with the title?"

"It's called _the life and times of Harold Saxon_, forgive me but that sounds rather unexciting for such a intriguing book. It would have suited it if it was just another autobiography of some colorless and passionless political figure, but not this. Your book is not only about politics. It's not even only the story of your background, the rise of a successful businessman to the public eye. It's about who you are."

Saxon cocked his head and studied her. It had been a long time since he was intrigued by anyone. Putting his hands on the back of his head he leaned back in his chair. "And who am I in the eyes of my most beloved reader?"

"You are a dreamer, and a fighter." Lucy said. In her soft voice was a sincerity that could even touch the most cynical of hearts. "You fight for your ambitions, but you fear them as well. You want desperately to be loved, but at the same time, you don't think you deserve any affection." Her cheeks turned crimson when she realized that she had perhaps said too much. "I am sorry for over-interpreting it. I guess all that I was trying to say is that it's a very touching story. It deserves a better title."

He gazed at her for a long moment, his strange mesmerizing eyes unblinking, till she started to feel really uncomfortable. Just when she thought he was going to tell her that her ideas were absolutely ludicrous, he clapped in his hands.

"Bravo! Bravo Lucy. _That_ was insightful! You should know that I was my intention to name the book differently, but my publisher thought that the original title was a tad too bold, so they recommended me to change it. Frankly, I absolutely agree with you, the current title is just _boring_. I am sure that a lot of people are not picking it up because they see the cover and think the entire book is a big yawn. That reminds me, I have to sack my publisher."

Lucy smiled in relief. "It's not too late to correct it Mr. Saxon. I am an editor at the Black Swan publishing house. I could help you to re-edit the current edition. It should improve your sales."

"PLease call me Harry." He informed her. "A woman with insight and useful abilities." Saxon said with an admiring smile. "Miss Cole, you are a true credit to your sex and a rare diamond to find."

**11.**

She found herself sitting behind her writing-desk in her bedroom at Christmas day. The bottle with bright green liquid was placed next to her. Although her heart was bursting with words, it was almost impossible for her to capture any of them in paper and ink.

Her hand reached out for the phial, and she traced the delicate curves with the tip of her fingers. Outside, in the garden, downy snow was softly drifting from a dark blue sky.

From the moment she had seen her dreadful end in Broadfell prison, she had known that the woman who had thrown the bottle of anti-elixir at the resurrecting Timelord wasn't acting out of revenge. She was not angry, or sad, nor did she fear retribution from her vengeful husband. She did it, because she loved him, and would not allow the monster to return to murder the man she had once loved.

With a slight trembling hand but a resolute mind, she started writing her letter to him, casting her thoughts to paper and sending it out into the future for him to find.

**12.**

_I know you will try to stop me. I know that if you have the chance to speak to me once more, you will tell me how stupid I am to give up my life so futilely, but even if you could, you will not be able to change my mind. When I was in Broadfell prison, the Doctor's companion Martha Jones once visited me, and blinded and embittered by my desperate situation I had asked her why she had risked everything, even her own life, to save the Doctor. She told me that an universe without the Doctor was one of perpetual darkness where the warmth and light of the sun was but a distant memory. She could not bear the thought of that cold, loveless world. _

_I know now, that I simply cannot bear the thought of an universe without you._

_I may not be a brave woman. I am not special. God knows, I am not even that smart, but for one brief moment in my life, I was the Master's companion. You took me to see the stars. You allowed me to touch that fragile light that shone beneath your cold mask. I was Lucy, dancing with my beloved Lord in the sky of diamonds. For that, I am forever grateful._

_My only regret is that I will never see you again. You. The Doctor's trusted companion and my repenting time crusader who has saved my life in so many ways. My only comfort is that one day, in a not too distant future, we shall meet again…_

On a cold December day in 2005, the Master and the Doctor hid away from view in the porch of a nearby department store when Harold Saxon came out of the bookshop with Lucy by his side. They were talking and smiling to each other as they took the short stroll over the pavement to the black limousine that was waiting for them. When one of his bodyguards held open the car door, Saxon halted for a moment and stuck his nose in the frosty air. His remarkable sense of smell picked up a most familiar scent. Even though the Doctor had hidden the Tardis by placing it out of sync with time for just one second, and even though he could not see the other Timelord, he knew that the Doctor was close. Smiling to the general public, he let Lucy get inside the car first. He then glanced back in the direction of the two hiding Timelords while adjusting his sleeves and black leather gloves. With a knowing grin, he got inside the car, and ordered his driver to bring them back to his office.

_And although I may not remember you, may not recall in my mind everything that has happened to us that fateful night, in my heart I will always know… _

From a cold corner of Oxford Street, the Master emerged out of his hiding place with the Doctor by his side. As Harold Saxon's car pulled up in front of the red traffic light, he caught a glimpse of Lucy. She was just glancing over her shoulder, looking back at him. Their eyes met for a brief, fleeting moment.

_I know you, Timelord. I love you, and that is enough._

Through the rear window, he saw her smile at him before she turned away.

As the car drove around the corner and out of his life, he let her letter slip from his fingers. Caught by the wind, it drifted higher and higher into the sky, till it finally disappeared over the rooftops.

_The end._

This is the end for this installment folks! Catch the next story entitled: The Most Happy Bride, in March. I know it's a long time to wait, but I am afraid real life is demanding some time from me at the moment, so please be patient and check my site for further updates! Meanwhile, let me know what you think of this story, it keeps me motivated to go on.


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